Coliseum Clarity

[*juggleblood*]

There is no perfect consensus on what changes could/should be implemented to the coliseum. I've taken everybody's perspective into consideration and I think I see the principles that need to be applied.

Regarding xp: "Trickle XP" is not an intended featured, and is basically a euphamism for botting. Thus XP in coliseum should be zero or severely penalized. I favor a 50% penalty over a complete nix (current setting).

Regarding coliseum loot: Splork and Josiah noted that this loot is out of place in coli since these items can't even be used in coliseum. Zlodiak and Josiah and others have suggested some of the loot is either OP or in over-abundance. I think the natural solution here is to move the coliseum loot to epic and raider mobs. Rather than take this stuff out of game, it makes sense to move it to the epic system. Kill raiders for boons and buffs and then use the boons and buffs on epic mobs. It makes a lot more sense than having a few highly scripted coliseum junkies supplying this stuff. As to the potion affects, I favor a reduction in supply to a nerfing of the affects. Also I favor raising the minimum number of groupmembers to use a heavenly scroll from 3 to 5 and make scroll not work in combat, force group to step back and do it. Same for lamb.

Regarding coliseum berries: Josiah and others have suggested that there might be drops in coliseum that could be used in coliseum (such as the old berries). I'm not inclined to do that, because I'm content with the scores where they are and don't care to upset the balance there.

So this would leave us with a coliseum where pretty much the only draw is going to be honor and drachma and glory and the days of people running it endlessly will dry up. I hate doing changes that piss off people I like and want to keep. But we have to base these decisions on some kind of principles, not what will anger particular players.

[Filk]

I agree on everything.
Also, i wish it would be posible to nullify houses effect inside colliseums. Because atm it only comes to that when leveling and doing top scores. Alot of ppl still stays at 39xN because waiting for their major house. And after some rare combination of double majors, thats not posible to beat current scores without such combination.

[Riurik]

I would suggest incremental changes and seeing how it affects usage would be preferable to a big bang to do everything being discussed. FYI I am one of the people who finds the XP in the coliseum rather nice as a newbie when I need to hit that next level, but I don't run the XP constantly in semi-bot mode. I'd like to suggest it would be nice to have a trigger that cuts in if you have run the coliseum more than say 3 or 5 times in a day before XP gets cut off. Essentially you are penalizing those of who don't bot the coliseum for a handful of people who do.

[Teron]

Fluffy, then waiting for the right houses shows your persistance in achieving high scores.

Fyi, you need a major house on BH day, which coincides with no lost conc bonus, not two major houses.

Mage didn't wait for a major sun/heat house on the BH day, and leveled fast. If you chose to do 6x39 and wait for houses, that's your choice. I'd argue that the wait isn't for drachma (a 2-4 month wait for 10 drachma?) Also, removing house effect actually gives you (and me) a huge advantage in your past scores at least, when you did do coliseum with the right houses.

[Filk]

Shrug. I think colliseum scores should be done only with colliseum environment. Following that logic, all items using was excluded. Houses do exactly the same. Just giving more problems to get exact situation when you could do high score. You need to wait for some house. Sometimes it could take months, before its long enough and in your time zone. Thats just plain stupid.

Major battle and major fire at same time gives you gigantic advantage for example. And thats once-a-decade combination probably

Old results is a problem for sure. And i dont know good fix. Maybe keeping is the best variant, because after ppl will reborn, list will be adjusted anyway.

But neither i cant think about option how to exclude bonuses from specific room, except by codding new special setting for a room to ignore them

Problem isnt in drachma. Its about perfectionism. If you could do it better, you trying to do it better. And with such long to get option that hurts sometimes

[Gorka]

I agree with Filk... it would have been better if houses didn't effect coliseum... but it's too late now. I hate waiting for major's to get good scores. Good houses seem to favor mages types as the place is full on a heat/sun but it's empty for most of the other majors. This is adding to the clear "mage bias" the coliseum has at least in the first 5-6 levels.

I fear that putting scrolls only with raid mobs will hurt grouping. In my opinion raid mobs aren't worth running... I ran all the imps with War just last week. It took a long time, the xp was ordinary, the honor at my rank not worth it (5k). We popped a few t1's though... (the only redemption.) At the current coliseum pop rates you could kill a whole raid... maybe 2 or 3 and not get a scroll. Making scrolls a random pop in groups of a certain size a better solution... unsure how practical that is to code.

I don't have a problem with the coliseum essentially becoming an "auto-quest" only idea in benefit. I don't have a problem losing "my business." I'm not happy about losing the trickle xp, because the game is a total grind at my levels, but I'll find alternatives. The first rule of being a crack dealer is not to use the crack yourself... so no big loss there... but, no scrolls to slow down groups... probably the biggest risk here.

[*juggleblood*]

I agree that we could've cut out astrology, but also don't see what's to be done about it now because the scores are what they are. These rooms do have special flags that make devak not work and imbued spells not work. We probably should have included astrology at that time. On the positive side, it's something that makes people pay very close attention to astrology.

@Gorka if you think about it, doing raids would be much more worthwhile and interesting if they load this stuff. Certainly more interesting than pushing a button in a single room. The pop rates would not imitate the coliseum, rather I would put this treasure into a treasure category and set probabilities there such that on occasion you would even find multiple pops on them and I could make an elite category for the raid leaders such that they would load scrolls, lambs, goblets, and blue pots at a somewhat higher rate. In fact it might be a good idea to have 3 treasure categories, small raid, large raid, and raid leader/epic.

[Josiah]

While you are looking at potentially changing raid mobs, I would like to see them be more numerous. Often they are ignored, but they can all be wiped out quickly by a single avatar. If there are two people running raids at the same time, they'll all be dead in 5 minutes or less.

If we're incentivizing running them, lets increase the availability of raids so we don't create any rivalries competing over a few mobs.

Either larger or groups or much more common spawns would be great. Alternately mathor could spawn a new random raid instantly if all raids mobs are dead.

[*juggleblood*]

Definitely doable. First need to make sure they all even working. I finding a few that I think might be defunct. Do you know Bohtk, Tanra, or Slosih raid leaders? Another issue is that many of the timers are no longer functional and mobs don't disappear as intended and in some cases, such as imps they build up to quite a number. I'm not sure I want to fix them tho, I'm wondering if all the raids can't just hang around until killed.

[Josiah]

Some of the timers are working. I've often been fighting elemental furies when suddenly they all de-spawn.

[cyprimus]

I am thinking ever increasing admittance fees, insurance if you want raised.

so first time entering free, next time 1000 coins ...next 20k etc.. with comments from the pit master ... the customers are getting really tired of your theatrics.. etc...

and the raise insurance, so you get raised if you die could be cost effected... lower shock chance for higher cost.. etc..

heading to work, just got a vision of the old dragon magazine cartoon with 'insert sword for 750 exp' figured i would post while thinking of it, and give another option.

[*juggleblood*]

Nothing like that is necessary if we cease running coli for loot and xp. Get in, get your honor and drachma, get out.