Grouping

[jezer]

I still think more has to be done to remove the group bias to warriors and clerics.

It just seems wrong that the cleric class is built in such a way 90% of the players feel obliged to choose it because of the practicality of mana, restores, sanct and refreshing.

Likewise warriors have skills that make them by far and above the best tanks. Without these two factors, why should any one want to risk losing xp in a group?

I want to see a -9 bard, -4 mage, -5 druid, and a bunch of other non warrior and cleric classes run MH... we talk about like it's a practical doable solution... but realistically how much could they kill?

I've done this kind of grouping in a 4-5 man group with Bro in westwood. It sucks, you kill 5 mobs, you get bad xp and you have to regen. In Westwood! Not even MH!

I've also 2 maned in dark dreams with Assirian as a -10 cleric tank. Nothing against Assirian, but I still have to heal him way too much. I dare you's, take a small -9 non warrior tanking grouping somewhere... with 4 others... tell me where you can get good xp without regenning every 4 mobs.

Without clerics and warriors, groups are far too impractical, and 2 man in an xp area will almost always be better xp.

[jezer]

6-8 Man Group vs Tiamat

Tank call goes out... finally get one, minutes pass, smallbies join group, in the waiting the afkers get there drinks and aren't back in time. We get two healo. We loose 30 seconds screaming at someone to enter portal. Someone's didn't have fly up they plummet and die. 2 mins passes, 2 people die because of prot chain and rescue lags... 6mill xp...

Solo vs Prongs

30 seconds passes... 6mill xp

Why Group unless there are good warriors and clerics? I for one don't even bother. I've been in small groups, just trying to support someone like Bro. You can tell what everyone in the group is thinking... this isn't working, this xp is slow, but we can't take anything else though... They last 20mins, some person makes an excuse so no ones feelings get hurt and we all split up. The closest I've ever been to getting good xp and being in a mid sized small group was the old castle days. It's either solo, 2man stab or large group these days, no in betweens.

[bellafea]

[quote="Toxis"]I bet we could get Afea to tank :) -Toxis[/quote]

Heheh....
well whatever it takes, in full charisma i am getting close to my goal, i still need the rings from lyme, the boots from tower's, the shield from magic, dagger of dreams and eventually lorehelm, other then that i have enough to get masterpiece these days. in that set with stone i think i have -1.0

reg/non charisma i have -6.3 or 4


I ran ogre caverns solo the other night, full charisma without sanc and yeah it was an experience but i managed to kill some ogres and the hangman tree along with fish.birds solo with hardly any ac and half the time i forget to sanc... because i do not run sanc when i solo i need the mana for songs, so no sanc no ac and i still did it.

Whenever you need a tank i will try it, even if i die 1001 horrible deaths at least i can say i have tanked!

This just in: The BH Hearald:

Bards are the new tanks
Red is the new black
Whining is at an all time high!
botters find themselves at the gates or dead and wonder why!


~Afea~

[jezer]

Another small idea, thanks to Afea...

What if bard's could sing a song to enhance the mana regen of a group... just maybe druids, who don't really have group skills could sustain shift in groups longer. That would be cool!

Toxis has always encouraged druids to shift in his groups, I'm not sure why at one stage it seemed frowned upon by other leaders. It would be kind of cool to actually be a druid in a group... instead of 2.cleric or 2.mage.

PS I apologise if some of my posts sounds whiny... its not my intent. I am trying to come up with ideas... as stupid or as good as they may be.

[Rynquald]

Nervous xp rocks, and a group of shifted druids chops pretty fast.

I guess there's non-caster classes for chop damage though, so it probably often seems to make more sense to use a druid as a healer/blaster.

But it would be fun to get to shift in groups sometimes.

[jezer]

Haha Ryn, I love it how diplomatic you are... no one is ever wrong, and no one is really right, but they all make good points! That's an awesome quality!

[Rynquald]

Hehe, thanks

[bellafea]

[quote="jezer":s0nie42b]Another small idea, thanks to Afea...

What if bard's could sing a song to enhance the mana regen of a group... [/quote:s0nie42b]



we do, you just have to be sleeping to get the full effect of it, dreams of the castle... if you can fight in your dreams....

[jezer]

Heh, Regening mana while I'm sleeping shifted... is something I try and keep to a minimum...

I do occasionally fight in my dreams, my incident with the polar bear springs to mind!

But an upright awake version of dreams was what I meant.

Would a song like that lead to more bard/druid groups? I'd be keen.

[12345]

I'm having trouble believing this is even a topic.

The BH Castle was a really cool place for a long time. The xp was a bit high for the effort, but it was a good place to train newbie leaders. Its also aligned good, which removed rabbits and made coordination within the group slightly more important. Akasha did a pretty good job mixing up their skills and it took a bit of know how to run it well. Then it was changed and became a decoration.

Warriors were the flavor of the year once the Warrior/Monk combo came into full swing. Everyone made some version of a killer tank and they were plentiful. Then those same people realized all you need is a whiner and a rescue script and tanking simply couldn't be any more boring. The main reason I preferred to lead while tanking is so I didn't fall asleep.

Another annoying factor with smallish groups is the continents. If you want to run 2 or 3 man, MH Valley is nice. If you want to run 3 or 4, Theris. If you want to run 5, BH Castle and upper Cano. If you want to run 6 or 7, MH Caverns and lower Cano. If you want to run 8 or 9, Dmount, Lair and Sa. If you want to run 10+, you're back on SS and in the Dweb. So, if you want to run a group of varying size you either need fargate or There and Back. I can't tell you how many times I've had someone join or leave a group and I've instantly wished I was on another continent.

Clerics are nice, I know lots of really good ones. I've improvised them on many occasions though. Rynquald, Quake and Cipha are some of the best clerics going. Ask anyone.

Valk is a horrible place. You can 2-man everything. Autumnal is vaguely interesting. Ersa and Roach are the only real group xp. Every Valk group I've ever run has started with LEAVING Valk. Running Sakura and Ruins of the High Tower was much, much better. AH is a great place for newbies but no true newbie could ever figure out how to get to where the xp is.

Hm... This isn't where I parked my car...

[jezer]

Bit!

Are you still playing! Good to see you posting on the board again, your posts are always full of great teaching information. I've missed them!

I'm eager to try Theris in a 3-4man now. That is stuff I just had no idea about.

Epic's has changed things a bit, also fewer new players, so it's why the topic has come up. Nothing is dire wrong or anything, it's just a case of making things a little better, especially for <2x40's when it comes to grouping I think is Jake's intention.

Medios reckon's he has some good ideas to help... would u post them Mike?

[12345]

Running 2x40 groups is rough because of Lyme. All the Tards get sucked away and putting something together with what's left is kinda hard. The castle was a nice place to hang out during those times for a while, but once Geber and Vicar got changed into Golden Gloves champs, that came to an end pretty quick.

Best alternatives are to get a -9 tank and run MH Valley 2 or 3 man. Or maybe some of upper Cano. If I remember, I would try to run Theris during those times since you could get by with -9, curse and blind. If you have someone that can lead with deathgrip, that helps a bit too. Miss the blind though and the group is charcoal. The citizens cast firewind twice a round.

I haven't played for a little over a year. Mind is a bit rusty.

[Tap]

Since you don't play here much now, have any equipment you might want to part with by donating?

[Thraxas]

You want to make more groups happen?

Give leaders more xp, say extra 10% xp for every group member present for groups over 4 chars.

You want to stop botting?

Give all doors and portals a random element
Get more mobs to toss.

You want to make groups more effective?

Automate the prot chain
Let shifts protect

You want to make tanks more effective?

remove rescue lag

You want to have groups that don't need warriors to tank without undermining the warriors class?

Give bards a -1ac song costing similar to moon aura, perhaps we could call it sun aura? Maybe it could affect just one char or the group I'll leave that up to you.

You want non clerics and non warrirors to have a job in group?

well thieves stab, bards sing, mages blast, so give necros a low power pet that dosen't steal group xp, let druids protect while shifted, monks I've no idea never played monk.

You want more xp groups to happen?

introduce an exchange rate for xp to drachma ... hmm not even sure about this one myself.

You want to remove cross continental problem?

Introduce a group only staff (say only 10 person group or above costing 100k) that can fargate a group.

You want more groups on VK?

Introduce an area on vk that has some elite newbie only or temp eq but has bigger mobs with decent xp.
Put more essential forges on vk (like jjd)

Other ideas?

Group stab option allows a secondary thief in group to add a single stab to the main stabbers ... watch groups run with 10 thief primes.

Give necros pets that do something other than hit stuff .... such as stand in front of you and add -1ac, even capped at -10 this might be useful, or hit ether mobs, or sing songs to the other pets.

Give cleric containing chars a different supp to rabbit that makes them make a choice ... get heals or get mana regen or something.

Make necro pets scale like cleric supps so warrior primes can't solo desert anymore with rabbit and swordwraiths so they need groups to get xp.

Slam anyone that suggests bringing ptheft back ... it brought untolled misery upset and bad feeling to sloth. Fine if you're on for hours and can spend the time to get your elite eq back, (well no I'd still argue it hurt the mud even then) not so good when your crystal helm gets stolen as you log on for 10 mins to check your eq change scripts.

Give Jezer a medal for the sudden upsurge of posts.

Seriously consider asking more regular players to have an input into major structural changes such as honor before introducing them. I think honor only helps 5x40s great give them a reward and something to do, but not at the expense of 90% all xp groups.

Let crier keep you logged in long enough to finish a post.

Hmm what else ... take my soapbox off me before I can post again ... many more ideas but will post them later.

[firebrand]

[quote="Widow":3lm4v31t]- the leader should be able to group people they want to and eject others that they don't want. This is something i found astounding about Sloth when I came. I fol someone and automatically I am grouped - no questions asked!

It would really be no headache at all to code a command where the person being followed has to group each member individually. They would also be given the ability to ungroup a member. It also makes grouping around lurkers or MIA ppls much easier.[/quote:3lm4v31t]

we currently do have such commands in place: glock to lock group to prevent new followees, gunlock to allow more joiners, ungroup <victim> to remove unwanted/univited joiner. it would get a lot of brand new newbies to sloth dead in groups if they were not autogrouped simply by not knowing to group self and then follow leader. help group will give you a few commands to look at if you are not already familiar with using them. there are also things like help follow, help assist and probably several more that i have not taken time to check out but you get the idea. to be honest there are several things that innovative leaders have come up with to make grouping more fun and less botting.

"he's unconscious, larry. he's tied to a post" --ed --> identity