Spellbook System

[12345]

Well, one thing I've noticed about the books that pop on larger mobs is that they've got really good percentages. It's almost easier to get an xp group together and pound the area than it is to endlessly cycle the smaller mobs. It's a tactic I've been trying to use more and more since it helps get some of the more annoying spellbooks out of the way and doesn't slow down my quest for iron skin.

As far as the quest idea, I'm trying to get some more info on that too I guess. A quest that gives a spellbook isn't much good unless you can read it and automatically get learned, since running quests 2 or 3 times doesn't really seem to be an option.

The next best option seems to be something like a quest library. ie. If you complete a spellbook quest you gain a library card that allows you to check a certain book out of a library. Book is nocrumble and can't be dropped, given, sold, stolen, etc and has to be given back, and as long as it's out of the library you're max hps are reduced to 10% of normal. Anyway, something like that.

Anyway, that's what I have for ideas from the quest angle. If it comes down to brewing books... well, I guess it depends on the book... but I think that's just making things worse.

[Vixn]

Does anybody here have 'demon touch' spell learned? I think the way you learn it is good quest idea. The only thing we need is just fix this fuggin tome to stop it from flying away without any read.

[12345]

Not I. No chars with high mage. Anything like the paladin in shadow keep?

[Weasel]

I learned demon touch a while back.. bit of a mission alright.. took a number of attempts.

[Alberich]

nod I read dtouch years ago... at the time, you could forge one key, and any number of people could read the book, if they got to that one room in time... altho I understand it's since been changed, and since I never used it, I haven't bothered learning it for any chars I've made since... that wouldn't really work for this case though, last thing we need is have other people being able to read books someone else did quest for... then instead of newbies begging for sbs in their title, we'll have them begging for help on whole series of mobs, or infinite gossips of 'any1 reading xxx sb right now? plz i need help with it!!!1!'

I suppose you could do something whereby you learn say 30% of spell for each portion of a quest you complete, with no reading involved - that will ensure everyone has to do the quests for themselves, and will give you something to point at to feel like you are accomplishing something (as if anything in an online game can be called an accomplishment... but still...)

[12345]

Well, you could do a lot of things that could preclude cheating.

For instance, for the quicken spell. It's a mage spell, so you know whoever's after it should have the locate object spell.

You ask the Archmage about quicken and he loads the book in a random location on Sloth and tells you that only the quick can learn the spell.

Book is crumble and set to dissolve in 15 minutes. In that time you have to locate where the book is, sail/run/whatever, pick it up, get somewhere safe and read it.

The pop rate would be great, getting to whereever it is in time mind be a definate challenge though.

[kjartan]

Here are some disorganized thoughts on this:

1. instead of giving you the sb, a quest could be set up just to crank up your percent-learned a certain amount. You could make the amount small enough such that you were doing several quests to fully get the spell.
2. if it did give you an sb, the sb could be made personal. I don't know if it's currently set up so that others cannot read a personal sb, but it certainly could be.
3. the reason that a number of sbs require cycling tiny mobs with atrocious pop rates, and I'm not saying it's a good reason, is that the sb usually has to be on a mob that someone who can learn the spell can kill, but when we add a new spell it's mostly avatars who are going to be cycling for it. So to make it non-trivial we give it a bad pop rate. That's my guess, anyway.
4. If you have a forge-like quest for an sb, then you could have a bunch of items on different mobs with relatively higher pop rates, e.g. instead of 1 at 1 in 50 you could have 10 at 1 in 5. That would be acceptable to me as far as difficulty and would be less boring and also doable more efficiently - you can run through the list and maybe by the time you're done the first one has repopped, so you don't have to be waiting so much.
5. This is a good way to get people going to some of the other areas - putting cps there. Also, note that you can put hints as to the area and mob to find a cp at in the quest messages, so it doesn't have to be wealth & glory for everything. Some of the hints can be fairly blatant.

[Weasel]

Making it personalized is a bad idea imho - that's just going to make the sb impossible to ever get for some classos...

ack, if you have to go through with this, I hope the option still remains to get spellbooks the old (existing) way too.. personally I'm starting to see this idea as quite possibly making things a lot worse for ourselves.. yes, existing poprates can really suck, but think about what is being proposed here.. and now you have to locate not just 1 book but 5 cps (for example) for every spellbook, and hope that you don't get a run of bad luck on ALL of them, not just 1 item.. dunno.. it sounds like a case of out of the frypan and into the fire.. people dislike having to spend so much time already cycling spellbook mobs.. it's stated very very clearly by coders - this will NOT be easier than existing methods, just different.. and chances are that equates to harder..

[Rajil]

At least this way you and several friends could run different mobs each and not have to queue up on one or two mobs.

I'm sure you and your best friend Auto could pop the cps fast enough.

[Guinex]

SLOTH IV, THERE

[*juggleblood*]

This would be fun.

The arena master gossips 'I am now holding a quest for the spellbook 'haste'. All interestes parties report to the arena.'

The arena master gossips 'Arena quest will begin in 5 minutes. Arena doors will lock in five minutes.'

The arena master gossips 'I have place a spellbook for the spell haste in the arena. Arena doors are now locked. The doors will open in 10 minutes, whoever escapes with the spellbook wins. Good luck.'

[kjartan]

We could make more spellbooks pop in specific areas rather than on specific mobs, so you could run the area and get a lot of chances at a pop without having to wait a long time for one mob to reappear. We would probably make the pop rate somewhat lower than it is on the mob in this case. It depends on the area and the sb.

Oh, and regarding Weasel's earlier comment on the odds of having a streak of bad luck: if you have to hit ten 1 in 5 chances, or one 1 in 50 chance, it will take on average 50 tries. But: the 1-in-50 pop will take 100 or more total tries about 13% of the time, while the 10 1-in-5 pops will take 100 or more total tries only 0.2% of the time. (The converse is also true: you're much more likely to get lucky and hit the 1-in-50 in <20 tries than you are to hit all ten of the 1-in-5s in 1 or 2 tries for a total of <20 tries.)

[brand]

practice shadowwalk
you practice for awhile...

practice shadowwalk
you practice for awhile...

practice shadowwalk
you are already learned in this area...


damn how's that for a new spellbook idea!
am i on to something slothlike yet?
why hasn't anyone ever thought of this?

brand

[Clink]

I'll take a tongue-in-cheek approach to summarizing Weasel:

- I don't like things the way they are and I'll complain about it.
- I fear change and I'll complain about it.

Cheers,

Clink

[Autolycos]

[quote="Clink":2vkh7mem]I'll take a tongue-in-cheek approach to summarizing Weasel:

- I don't like things the way they are and I'll complain about it.
- I fear change and I'll complain about it. [/quote:2vkh7mem]


Clink ya maroon.. you just described Merlin/Corwin not Weasel.. decribing Weasel would have more of a scratching snorting sound to it..

for example.. a constipated cat with OCD in a litterbox