Rebirths

[Filk]

Noone will take cleric or monk as prime class after rebirth.

You are not changing your prime. Just 2-8 classes.
So as cleric you still have better supplicants(which should be adjusted though, i agree)
And as a monk, you get better grip modifier and higer caps.

[Teron]

As a cleric you get to use auto-assisting pit fiend, and if you do a few rebirths, you'll get prime skills to protect you, like parry or shield of thorns, arriving at cl/dr/wa/ma or cl/dr/ma/wa, which would be a very powerful combo.

Btw, +dam +wd +hd = +2dam. In fact, +2dam is better, because it works for stabs, too.

As for coli potions, you can't say you can pop a daily supply of potions in 15 minutes. It takes hours to do that, especially, if you want several group regen scrolls.

While they can be slightly reduced, also lowering the poprate would make them more of a joke, than anything. I'm not sure you've noticed, but they've actually made killing tough mobs easier and our runs longer, which is a big deal with having few people online.

[Zlodiak]

Pit fiend still autoassist?
I remember one of smallish evil supps was autoassisting too, blood hound or imp.
But neither of them autoassist now.
Autoassisting pit fiend is good, but druid prime might be better - he'll get better forms AND better regen.
Ok, even is cleric is good, what about bard? As i see it his only benefit is good combo of hp and mana.
Well, i'll repeat, I think current balance is founded on both - prime skills and innate abilities.
If we'll share prime skills we have to balance innate abilities better.
For now I think thieves will gain more than others because backstab of prime thief is much better and they haven't others really cool prime skills. Also druids will get a lot because of best regen.

+dam +wd +hd looks a bit unhonest to thieves, grips will get 2 dam and stab only 1.
In these terms 2 dam looks better. I wanted to say that 2 dam may be considered as too OP, so alternate might be +dam +wd +something (not hd) for monks. Well, i have no idea what exactly, to have it still useful for monks and not too OP.

As for coli potions, i like the idea of group scrolls and lambs (while the rate can be slightly reduced for them too).
But potions are just terrible.
They gives insane boost compared to discussing 10xrebirth bonus and they have too good poprate.
The poprate is so good that you can't even sell these potions to shops - shopkeepers always have too many of them already. So you can just buy potion for about 15k and get insane bonus immediately.

We are talking about rebirth bonuses and there is point of view that these bonuses can be too OP.
These potions are much more OP and everyone can get them easy. I consider it as much-much-much more gamebreaking effect compared to rebirth bonuses.

[Josiah]

Yes, the coliseum drops have drastically altered gameplay. I feel like we should have to form a large group to kill big epic mobs, not just grab a couple friends and eat 4-5 restoration scrolls.

Blue potions and goblets and scrolls are extremely powerful, and shouldn't be so easy/cheap to access.

I'd like to see the following nerfs to the drops:

1) goblet duration reduced to the same duration as godsanc, and/or weakened to -1.0 AC
2) token drops removed.

Finally, and I believe this addresses the rest of the problems, one of the following:

3) (hard to implement) - Limit pops to the first 100-200 kills per day in the coliseum.

4) Add a cost to enter the coliseum more than 10 times in a single day.

5) Dramatically reduce poprates.

I think #3 is the best fix. Players who like running xp in the coliseum can continue to do so, but they won't get laden with pops. Anyone who wants coliseum loot will have to pop it themselves.

#4 would upset a few players a lot.

#5 would make fancy coliseum drops only available to the players who live there. In order to impact the flood of cheap coliseum stuff in the stores, the drop rate would have to be lowered so dramatically that the chances of getting anything good in a few runs would be unlikely. This would unfairly impact those who use the coliseum infrequently (as intended?).

[Josiah]

+dam +weapondam +handdam is more balanced than +2 dam. That's +20 damage on grips, and +30-45 on stabs. The thieves are still coming out ahead. If you want them even further ahead, give them +3 circle dam too.

There's a reason godhand and nekode cost the same amount of drachma; the reason is backstab multipliers. Straight +damage is super strong.

The exact bonus aside, I don't think we need to worry too much about overpowered characters with multiple rebirths ruining the game:

It will take many years for any player to grow far stronger than their peers. During this process they'll be weaker due to low levels, and they'll be contributing in or leading groups which helps everyone.

Second, our players are awesome. All of our active 9x40s are friendly players who regularly assist with raises/CRs, come help kill or cycle mobs when asked, and generally contribute to a friendly environment. Last week I asked War and Zuzu to help me hit a mob, and when I got back from dinner I found out that they'd continued hitting it and popped it twice for me!

I can't see them having a little extra survivability or dps being terrible for the game.

[*Breeze*]

I started coding. will recruit josiah to test before going live.

just a few decisions to make.

thanks for the input

[Filk]

Holy cow!
Mind telling us, what ideas you gonna implement after these decisons?
So we could prepare

[Josiah]

The decisions that haven't been made yet are almost certainly what we all want to know! Now, how are we going to come to a consensus on what we should get from a rebirth?

Based on what I've seen so far, I have the following expectations:

1) Rebirth will be a thing, part of standard gameplay, and available to all 9x40s.
2) Multiple rebirths will be a thing.
3) There will be a rebirth store, similar to the lyme mayor, allowing some customizable benefits.
4) The rebirth store benefits will be good but not gamebreaking.

Discussion is still wide open as to what kinds of bonuses should be available. I'd love to see skills from other primes become available, but I think it unlikely. If it does happen, probably not all skills will be available.

I'd like to see avatar shop purchases suppressed until 9x40 instead of erased at rebirth. Wiping purchases at every rebirth is a bit too punishing towards 'casual rebirthers' (seriously?) and dramatically favors those who rebirth constantly.

I think spell teaching lessons should also persist. Teaching spells like frostbolt and firestorm to 98% takes a lot of dedication over a very long period of time, and that progress shouldn't be erased repeatedly. Spell teaching is a community building tool and it should be encouraged.

[*juggleblood*]

Other prime skills is the only thing that would draw me in to such a system. I understand the concern about high-power characters. I tried to answer the question of whether the mud could handle it, or would we die of inflation. But I didn't come up with anything. I dunno.

[*Splork*]

The decisions that haven't been made yet are almost certainly what we all want to know! Now, how are we going to come to a consensus on what we should get from a rebirth?

We aren't going to:) The players took it upon themselves to take an idea brought to us by you, Josiah, and then ran with it!

This thread was incredibly active with ideas, suggestions, and requests. There was absolutely ZERO internal discussions via email among the Immortals or admin team. Breeze has begun coding it and I think we are all excited with what might become of our small 9x40 player base...

I will admit, I am a bit worried but that is my job

[Josiah]

After carefully reading through all the posts again, here is my proposal for the Rebirth shop. I think it's about in the middle of what people were proposing. I hope it includes enough of a bonus to tempt those like Juggleblood into trying it, while being (barely) tame enough to not break the game. Each rebirth grants one character redefining skill, and two selected bonuses.

Pick one:

Forbidden Manual of Skill - Teaches a single prime skill. One read to max.
- Thief: Circle, Apply Poison, Sleight of Hand
- Warrior: Parry, Riposte, Second Wind, Massive Crit
- Monk: Focus, Kensai, Wraithtouch, Prediction, Deathtouch
- Necromancer: Ritual of Resurrection
- Druid: Shapeshift Form to Form
- Bard: Dance with the Dead, *Instrument Use (not currently a skill), Adaptation to Circumstances

Forbidden Tome of Knowledge - Teaches a single prime spell. One read to max.
- Mage: Mirror Image, Reflection, Frostbolt, Blizzard
- Bard: Call of the Sidhe, Dance of the Seven Luck Gods, Song of the Mist, Knight's Prayer
- Druid: Shield of Thorns, Canopied Arbor
- Cleric: Dark Mace, Aerial Servant, Circle of Healing, Kylas Delight
- Necromancer: Death Pact, Wraithform

Amazing Aptitude
- You count as one '40' higher towards supplication, shapeshift, animate/summon undead, awaken (max 7)

Pick Two:

-0.2 AC (maximum 5)
+2 hit (maximum 5)
+1 dam, bonus handdam, and bonus weapondam (maximum 5)
+10 bonus spellbonus (maximum 5)
+10 bonus heal spellbonus (maximum 5)
-2 to spell saves, -1 to other saves (max 5)
+1 million xp cap (maximum 5)
+2mr (no maximum)
+10 hp (no maximum)
+10 ma (no maximum)

Please respond whether you agree, disagree, or show us your own proposal. It sounds like it is up to us to figure this out.

[Teron]

1. One prime skill/spell per rebirth sounds reasonable: it doesn't dilute the value of primes overall.

2. A 40 towards pets/forms is a good idea, let's prolong the idea towards all classes, since monk and bard get bonuses too, as well as +2 to stab dam/circle cap, irrc. I wonder if also applies to mage/cleric caps.
Does it apply to eq (ie, 5x40 items, 6x40 items, etc)?

3. I'd love the secondary bonuses not to be capped, since people would supposedly rebirth more than 5 times to get a number of prime skills. At least it keeps the path towards 5+ rebirths wide open, rather than making this decision less appealing and 5 rebirths a common end of the road.

Can I pick two of the same? I would .)

If there are no caps on the bonuses, we shouldn't be able to pick two of the same bonus.

[Josiah]

The '40' boost would not apply to caps or wearable eq, but only towards the listed class-restricted spells. It's effectively a way to open up a few more prime skills like pit fiends and piasas, similar to the other unlockable prime skills.

If you are only picking 2 custom bonuses per remort, it will take 15+ remorts just to get all the capped bonuses. I think the caps need to stay in place.

There are some prime benefits intentionally unavailable in my proposal:

Druid prime outdoor regen boost
Thief prime stab multiplier and hidden bonuses
Warrior prime AC cap
Monk prime handdam bonus (or increased base damage)
Mage prime strong attunement
Necro prime increased control cap
Cleric prime reduced healing costs

Bard prime instrument use might deserve to stay unavailable, since the other primes all have an unavailable benefit.

[Filk]

Please respond whether you agree, disagree, or show us your own proposal. It sounds like it is up to us to figure this out.

Its too weak. And prime skill are so different in terms of power. Only few of them worth rebirthing. Maybe 3-4 are good enough. Some just pointless to pick - like deathtouch(because you will not use it actually, since its too late and next reborn after it). And for example zero usefull for shifting druids, that worth to be reborn for.

Same for "pick two bonuses" - its nothing. Too weak. And you even limit it with some caps.

Whole idea will end after 3 reborns when you get skills that worth it.

I prefer my variant with 7 reborns. At each of them you get plus one to counter that allows you to use skills of classes you have after your prime. At each reborn you could pick different class order so you will be using different skill sets up to the last reborn where you get all skils of all your classes.

With plain -0.2 AC +2mr +10 bonus spellbonus +10 bonus heal spellbonus. 1 dam, 1handdam, 1weapondam(thats reasonable part about dam bonuses, i agree). Its not that much to be limited by choice in shop.

[Teron]

I found 7-8 useful skills I'd rebirth for, though rebirthing just for sleight of hand seems too generous.