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Forum Name Gameplay
Topic subjectAnnoying game aspects, am I alone ??? (LONG) RANT
Topic URLhttps://forums.carrionfields.com/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=3991&mesg_id=3991
3991, Annoying game aspects, am I alone ??? (LONG) RANT
Posted by Rutsah on Wed 31-Dec-69 07:00 PM
First Id like to say that Im a giant lover and that I am seeing a few things that upset me. I have also played many other races so these views I hope are not to bias or inacurate. If they are I hope a immortal with access to the specifics will correct my view with facts to back it up. That being said here are a few aspects that I want to rant about.

Stat affects:

Different stats seem to have a large affects in the game, unfortunately some more than others. And to top things off there is the ever elusive "luck" stat that seems to have a massive influence on a whole character (that or the game has massive consistent randomnes for specific characters).

A few nit picking things:

STRENGTH; probably the most ####ty stat of them all, it serves no function other than the regular weapon weight/carry weight. Sure its used in a few, and I mean a few spec skills. Otherwise it is 100% useless. Other stats provide incrimented bonuses that are scaled from 15 to 25. From basically useless to extremly usefull. Why not make strength usefull and filter enhanced damage through current str/25 as a multiplier. Why not have str be more "beneficial" in thematically relevant checks. Personaly I think a 25 str giant should easily be able to pull itself out of quicksand, but a arial fail massivly due to lack of strength. Or perhaps breaking bindings, or anything where flexing some muscle is relevant. A conjurer with 10 charisma is appauling compared with 20 charisma (10 more), why should a 15 str elf be able to hit as hard (5 or so less dam roll) as a giant with 25 str.

INTELLIGENCE;
I am working from the shadows on this one, but comments from other immortals in posts and in game have indicated the following: Bonuses to spell casting level , saves check, power of spell (tied in), not to mention alot of checks are made against intelligence. Every level your mana (spell points) is also determind by this stat. The real whopper however is that practice %'s are based on this stat totaly. Personaly I think that this is crooked hugely. I think that spell learning rates should be based on int sure. Certain skills however should be based on relevant stats to that skill If your practicing endurance, consitution should be your check. If your practicing cleave, strength should be your check. If your practicing riposte, dex should be your check. So on and so forth.

WISDOM;
I've had little success in testing wisdoms affects on prayers, I would assume that prayers are similar to that of spells and bonuses are applied equally. Wisdom also determins the number of mana that a person regains per tick/sleeping/standing/resting. It also determins how many practices a person gets per level. This is another aspect that I think needs to be addressed. Train hp/sp/mv needs to be removed from the game. If you can train these then you should be able to train luck and charisma. Basically Being a gnome mage means that you get a extra 6 hp per level from pracs. Now if your average hp level was 60hp, a 10% bonus would still be nice, but not overly impressive. When your hp levels of say 18 for a warrior, a bonus 6 hp is a massive 33% bonus. Seeing gnomes with more hps than giants and dwarfs is far from amusing.

DEXDERITY;
One of the few stats that I think functions well. The difference between 15 dex and 25 is quiet noticable. Many skills use this, some which did not now seem to check dex also. There are many aspects in which I could talk about dexterity, but I have little to comment on it.

CONSTITUTION;
This is a catch 22 stat. Unfortunately due to game design this stat is what keeps your character ticking. Also unfortunately it inbalances the game hugely. It wastes a crapload of time for many players. Con seems to be relevant to many malediction checks (that i've noticed), it determins how many hps you per tick. However when it comes to leveling it only checks your natural con, not your current con, which is think is bad, really bad. You can max your str/int/wis/dex/char and gain full affects (wis to a lesser degree due to needing 2 points for 1 functional point). Yet you get screwed over harshly for pking and losing con which I think is poor design.


*** LUCK ***: Well this stat has pissed me off more than anything. I have had characters that get spamed almost every round with "you land a lucky blow" Lucky this, lucky that. Now I have a character that I think is the total opposite. I seriously think that his luck is like 1 out of 25. With 100%'s in skills nothing works. And I mean shockingly low success rates, below 20%. I Think i've had a good 50 pks where not a single skill has worked, and not just 1 skill, I am talking about 4-6 skills that just fail 5-10 times in a row.

Luck seems to have an affect in the game, It should be displayed on your character sheet. I pissed down the drain 150 hours on a character that is ####ed up and total unfunctional, if it was infact due to a ####ty arse luck stat. I want to know, I will roll 100 characters and check the luck stat each time just to ensure I dont get that sort of character again. There is 100% no need to hide the stat. You might as well hide all stats and remove trainers. Randomly generate stats for characters.


END STATS:


EXP PEN:
Now I can understand how sickly this can be in "tweaking" , balancing races and their perks/negs along with their xp cost isnt nothing easy. However I think that Some aspects need to be looked into, not only relevant to the races but how the whole game has affects on those races.

Fore example: Most races have a vuln, some have two or more. There are many many items in the game that remove the bulk of those vulns, however there are still races that have vulns that cannot be covered. There is a arsenal of weapons for many damage types however there are a few vulns that there are few weapons for, why is this ? Is it a intentional inbalance, are you blissfully unaware of such inbalances. Or is the staff lacking builders to create chessy items for said "gaps".

Perks and vulns in reguards to xp pen:
Personaly xp pen doesnt bother me one bit. I live purely for the pk ar hero range. It means that I dont plan to prowl for pk targets 8 levels below me :). That aside, Yes I have to spend more time leveling, which is boring as hell.. but part of the game and it forces you to put yourself in a position to be pked (which is always good :) ). However I think that a review needs to be preformed on a few races in reguards to perks/vulns/inherents/stats and xp pen. I do not think that stats should be changed (I think the imms have a nice balance, perhaps a tweak or two.) But they sure as hell should be accounted for them when looking at the overall process. If there was a race with 25 str/dex/con, and a 250 xp pen, people would laugh, but if it had a 2500 xp pen, people might think differently.

With current stat influences, certain stats are twice as important as others. Certain vulns and perks are extremly relevant to these as well. Overall tho, these perks & pens have no direct link to the relevant xp pen at all. This is a oldie and probably will never be changed, but look at cloud giants. Vuln neg and holy.. Seriously ####ed up #### right there. 2 vulns that cannot be protected against for #### at the same time. The only bonus all giants have is wielding two-handed weapons in 1 hand.. Which in itself is 100% useless. There is no bonus at all for a weapon that is flaged as two_handed. A ave 31 6 6 axe weight 25 is as good as a ave 31 6 6 weight 25 two-handed axe. Now if two-handed weapons gained a 50% bonus (seing as they normally require 2 hands) then sure being a giant for being able to wield two-handed weapons would be relevant. Giant resist is a joke, I mean a total joke. The weapon base on this mud is saturated with special/elemental damage types which just total negates the usefullness of giant resist. Personaly I think giant resist code should be overhauled from its ancient 1990's code to 2000 and RESIST WEAPON should be exactly that, all melee damage should be filtered through it. Would this inturn require a alteraction to xp pen, or other perks. Perhaps. Would this balance things up for having such a shocking low dex and int & wis that you have to piss hundreds of hours down the drain practicing skills... probably.

Moving on.

Weapon Specs:
I recently tested a whole bunch of legacies & specs, I was far from impressed with a bunch of them especially how functional some were compared with others. Simply put I think its bias in reguards to certain races how well some specs work and how poorly others work. I could be wrong, but I go from testing which I have preformed. Some of the differences were so tiny that I thought it purely accountable to randomness. However others stood out blatently.I assume that a bit of common sense applies with specs. However I do think that some common sense reguarding game design is also needed.

Take for example the mace spec:
One one hand you have 1 skill, cranial, that is size based. The bigger you are the better you cranial. Then the flip side, The smaller you are the better you drum... Personaly I can understand the cranial aspect, but I cannot understand the drum aspect it just seems stupid.

Sword spec:
Flurry, totaly str/skill based. Okay Strength for multiple attacks ??? Just because I can lift heavy weights I should be able to land many attacks in a row ?? The flip side, Riposte, heavily dex based. I've seen arials riposte 15 times in 10 rounds and a fire giant only twice in 10 rounds. A parry is a parry, yet you need more dex to turn a attack forcefully back on the attacker. Personaly I view this as a str based skill on the assumption that your allready "parrying" the blow your going to need strength to push the blade back.. Anyway..

Polearm spec:
To start off with I will say that 6 months ago when I tested this I got totaly different results to when i tested it a week ago, tests that were confirmed by another player/character. Polearm, you think large massive weapon heavy, for big strong people. Well you might think that but infact your wrong. Chop seems to be size based, enlarged fire giant seemed to chop alot better and harder than a reduced duergar. The flipside, and I find this stupid beyond all things. Distance. It seems the smaller you are the better it is. Enlarged giant actually tanked nearly 32% worse than it did when reduced on the same creatures, tested over 30 mins each, roughly 135-170 combat rounds was the basis of the test. Now even if the imms think that it might be "realistic". I would have made the assumption that game design would lead to a spec for all races that is both offensive & defensive. I would have considered polearm to be a greate giant defensive spec. It used to be. But not anymore it appears.

END warrior specs:



SUMATION:
Well where do I start. I think that a serious review & publication of all the skills/spells/songs &prayers in the game(this does not include legacies and other questy type aspects) would be a massive step forward in appeasing many of the players. I've heard wizzards/immortals say many times that players simply wouldnt understand some aspects, or that to do so would be to difficult. Personaly I know that is 100% horse####.

Even something as simple as saying, skill x uses str/dex/con for check. Check is made with level + saves. Save for half is made purely on wisdom check. Perhaps having help files have something along the lines of:

SKILL XYZ:
AFFECTING ATTRIBUTES: Size (smaller better), Str(higher better), weight(lower better)
Syntax: OpenCanWhoopAss
Desc: Opening this can, lays down some serious whoopass on whoever your fighting.

Assumeing that the affecting attributes was accurate, it would save alot of frustration, anger, confuse, misinformation... MORE importantly if they were kept up to date the players could rely on it. I would not have wasted 1400 hours on "testing" a ####load of skills only to discover that some finger happy immortal changed a bunch of skills mid test.

I think that An across the board alteration to "learning" rates be made to addapt them to other stats relevant to the skill/spell/prayer or song. Warriors of high constitution should be able to train endlessly, thus imrpoving their learning rates. Smart yet weak and frail warriors might have more insight (learn from mistakes and gain 3% instead of 1) but they still cannot train as much or constitant as their more hearty counterparts)

A stat attunement in reguards to str would be a good step forward to making max 25 str as good as 25 con/dex/int/wis.

The display of luck stat perhaps at level 30.
Removal or training hp/mv/sps at your local trainer.
A review/tweak of race vulns-perks-inherents-xp pen.

PS:
I know that the immstaff donate their free time, I know that you have a arsenal of players all suggesting what they think is good and what is needed for the game. I also know that there are dozens of players out there who put forward valid points time and time again in hope that CF will pay attention and the game will become immensly more enjoyable without the continued trend of it soaking up more and more time, providing more and more frustration.

Shooting down a suggestion with a simple fact/reason/example as to why it would not work is all that is required. Many immstaff allready do this. But I hope that many of the rants that I have posted in this rant are taken into consideration. Take ten steps backwards and Have a look at the whole problem. If im totaly wrong, ask yourself how I could be, what could be done to solve my errors. Could releasing game information relevant to players characters actually help not only them but you. If they have the information avaliable to themselves. They have no leg to stand on when commenting or complaining about a aspect relevant to that, especially if you say simply "We want it that way, and it shall remain that way". With information avaliable you might actually get players polls that ask that a certain aspect be changed in reguards to a specific skill/spell. I know its hard to let go of something you have created, but do remember that players are here to play it, if you please the masses, more will come :)