I remember Pico. I remember life before Valg.  I remember life
before Voralian, Tar Valon and a host of other additions to
the game.  And yet, I have never made hero.  A few days ago, I
tried again and today, gave up in disgust and deleted again. 
But this time, for a different reason.

In the past, xp sinks utterly killed me.  I'd grind and grind
for hours and then, the woops, mob death.  I'd look at the xp
hole I just dug for myself and it was so devastating to
morale, I'd give up.  

Now, that's changed.

With the fact that invis potions are essentially handed out
like candy, any class that can't see invis is screwed.  And I
made the huge mistake (for the most part) of making just such
a class.  Though I've played over many years I don't consider
my PK skills to be that good, but I consider my ability to
survive gank attempts to be well above average.  I developed a
knack for survival as the vast majority of my levelling is
done solo.  I constantly check the who and where and usually
spot incoming problems long before they happen and avoid them.
 And even when I miss the incoming gank, my wits are still
about me and can usually still manage to survive... until now
that is.  

This attempt, three times by the same warrior quaffing invis
potions and the fourth by an invisible shaman.  I survived the
first three and had I not failed a scroll, I would have
survived the fourth.  Wait, invis warriors and shaman?  Yea, I
was surprised.

Now I'm sure you're saying things like, 'well, if you can use
scrolls just use a detect invis scroll.'  And you'd be
correct. I could have, were I filthy rich and could afford to
keep one going constantly.  I was not.  And I have this thing
about having to keep paying to keep a detect invis scroll
going, costing me a small fortune in the process, when one
single invis potion is all the potential ganker would have to
pay to keep me from seeing them.

And I'm sure you're saying, 'oh, well, just group with someone
who can see invis.'  And you'd be correct there as well. 
Except for the fact that groups aren't that easy to find, at
least not for me.  Everyone has their own political
affiliations. If you try to stay out of the politics, they
make the excuse that you weren't picking sides or you didn't
look like you were supposed to and they gank you.  If you dive
into the politics, you're targeted by every OTHER political
mindsets and they still gank you. Which, is why I've always
typically soloed with the theory that if they aren't sure what
you are, they'll leave you be (for the most part). But,
sometimes you don't get a choice and the politics finds you.
So, the choices, in my mind, are squatting in a guild hoping
to find like-minded players without giving away your mindset
and painting a bullseye on your ass or, just go solo it.

More than anything, I've simply wanted to learn the game.
Learn the ins and outs of where to find this or that piece of
gear without dying a horrible mob death so that one day... I
might turn the tables.

I don't see that happening now even moreso.

With invis potions being sold for a pittance, the already
massive gear advantage that older players have over those like
me has been magnified to the point that I have no desire to
try again. 

And before you say, 'oh, just play a human assassin or a
duergar AP,' let me point out that I'd prefer to play a class
that I consider to be fun, one that I'd enjoy RP'ing, and not
be forced to play a particular class because warriors, shaman,
paladins, etc. can now run around with a bag full of invis
potions.

Thanks for trying to convince me to hang around though. But I
think this time, the advantage given to experienced players of
having all the nice toys plus invis, has gone over the top.

Delete - Delete

Invis low-level sitting PKers have been around since I started
playing in the mid nineties. I was one of them. The only thing
that has changed is now at L15 you can have detect invis up
24/7 without too much work. If I had a char and you asked in
game I'd show you. Also, scrolls of return? At L15 you can
barter for potions of return. They don't fail. That said,
depending what you do with the time that would have otherwise
been spent playing CF, you're probably better off doing
something less frustrating and more fruitful. 

I've been around a long time too and I've done that. But it
was with a class that had invis, not by quaffing pots and
pretending to be a mage. I simply don't remember invis pots or
those types of PK'ers being that... abundant.
Either way, maybe it's time to change that. Do you realize
that every single person who's responded to this entire thread
has basically had the same advice, that the answer to preps is
even more preps? You just did.  When do you actually get to
play your chosen class and stop pretending to be other classes
with preps?  When do the bloody prep wars end?

Is debating a game mechanic somehow violating a forum rule?

people complain. They are not interested in your or my
opinion. The icing on the cake is that even if they did, no
one who can code has the time (or inclination) to do anything
anyway.

Because you see I can code in several languages.  And since I
run my own business, I often have the time.  But if THIS is an
example of how logical debates are treated on the forums, I
definitely don't have the inclination.

This is me trying to be helpful.  Please read with that intent
in mind.

It doesn't necessarily matter how long you've been around; if
you've literally never hero'd then it could make sense to
regard yourself as somewhat of a newbie.  Certain combos are
often prescribed to newbies for a reason, and one of those
reasons is "built-in detects".

The crux of your problem seems to be:  I want to play X but X
doesn't have built-in detects and my gold-farming knowledge
(and/or barter item knowledge) isn't developed enough for me
to afford detects.

At the end of the day, you have to weigh your desire to play X
(and solo rank) vs. the [i]legitimate and totally
understandable[/i] frustration of dying to people you can't
see.  The more you develop your ability to quickly and
efficiently collect gold (or barter items) the less limited
you'll be.  It truly is an underrated skill.

One other thing I'd add: it's much easier to gather gold when
you're higher level, but the preps stay the same price.  One
other approach you might try is to just power to hero as
quickly as possible, at which point affording detects is much
more manageable.

I genuinely don't know if this is satire.

In case it's not, don't stress about that character. They're
rank sitting with a low exp pen char, decent gear and perfect
skills tripping players as they rank/practice skills. 

It is honestly the most low skill, zero challenge play style I
could think of and reminds me of that recent Necro bragging
about his PK prowess when he didn't get a single kill past 41.


Just ignore them, power past their rank and move on with life.

Does it make you feel big by bullying me?

a

The fact that you know EXACTLY who I'm talking about and
EXACTLY the technique they are using to grief inexperienced
players is all the poof I need to validate what I've been
saying.

My god man, you guys have even created a meme now that gives
it a title.

The problem I had with my limited knowledge is that I could
find exactly one place where I could solo rank without getting
my ass kicked by mobs or taking 10 minutes to kill one (I
checked 5 or 6 places) so powering past them wasn't that easy.

Plus, one was 4 ranks below me and the other 8 above me.  I
was pretty much caught in the middle of two players who simply
wanted to massage their ego with easy kills.  

But I'm used to all of that and expect it.  What I didn't
fathom was just how easy it was for classes like that to have
an invis prep and therefore had no real reason to spam DI
preps. 

Escaping mages (except maybe necros) is not really that
difficult at low levels.  Plus, magic damage is nothing like
gear damage.  I can make a warrior and even with my pathetic
knowledge of gear, can be EVICERATE'ing most every hit by
level 5.  Whereas, a mage class might do that much damage with
one spell hit and even they have a spell cooldown and at low
levels burn out mana quick.  There is no such thing as + to
magic damage.  So a low level invis mage doesn't worry me that
much.  A low level invis warrior, that's insanely stupid.

Even an AP can't cast invis till level 9 and depending on race
will likely have a painful failure rate and eat a gob of mana
doing so.  That potion is level one and if it's like every
other potion I know of, it doesn't fail.

I'm sorry you had a bad PVP experience. It can be a challenge
adapting to enemy tactics.

To address your invis concerns:
See invis preps come in all shapes and sizes. Some are less
than 100c, and most (all?) of them can be bartered for saving
you money.  As a fighter-y type I like to barter for blue
flowers by the kobold caves, and then upgrade to vials of
spider venom by feanwyn weald circa lv20, and finally black
roots in Ysigrath later in my career. All of these are
pills/potions which everyone has access to.

100% free see invis preps exist in the game which you can just
pick up off the floor or kill a weak mob for. The same exists
for flight, teleport, and word of recall.

One of the advantages of having an experienced playerbase is
that if you make a friend ingame, they can help you quickly
get caught up on what you've missed or forgotten in the years
since last you played.

Thank you.

Most of those preps, I know about. I over exaggerated a bit
when I referred to the DI scroll.  And yea, I could have been
chewing on flowers the entire time. My point is, should I
really have to pack around a bag of DI preps when I'm out solo
just to make sure I don't get ganked as the result of magic
that used to be the bailiwick of mages.

Think about that for a moment. Any class, and I mean ANY class
can now go invis and not really have to work for it. I could
get the coin to buy an invis potion in less than 1 minute and
not have to fight a single mob doing so.  And the potions are
right there in Galadon so it's not like I have to put forth
any effort on either end, getting the coin or the potion.

In the past, the only mage I truly feared while out solo was a
necro. Sleep frightens me. But at least they were forced into
the courtesy of letting you finish your NPC fight before they
used that spell and I had a prayer of escaping once I stood up
(a small prayer mind you).  For the most part, I never really
worried about a fighter or healer class because I could see
them coming and choose whether to fight or run.  But, when an
invis warrior comes in and you're in the middle of a fight
with an NPC and the first thing they do is trip you, or when
an invis shaman pops up and the first thing they do is plague
or blind you, well I was lucky to get away three of those
times.  And yes, a recall scroll saved me all three times.

The disadvantage of an experienced playerbase without level
based gear is that you can't make friends with everyone.  As a
result, if you don't know your head from your ass, you'll get
ripped to pieces, not by skill, but by gear.  Adding cheap
invis potions to that formula just makes life as a noob doubly
difficult.

The prevalence of those potions was new to me and I didn't
discover them until I was already pissed. The first times, I
assumed he had some trick up his sleeve that I wasn't aware
of.  When I realized that he was quaffing them for over an
HOUR (IRL) straight just so I couldn't see him, I was
incredulous (and that's no exaggeration). The next time it
happened, that was the clue that I was missing something big.
And that's also when I saw the writing on the wall and saw the
options of gobs of DI preps or saying **** it.

Zero mob deaths, one player death and I deleted. I knew what
was coming and, just like the xp holes I used to dig for
myself, I didn't have the stomach for it.

>should I
>really have to pack around a bag of DI preps when I'm out
solo
>just to make sure I don't get ganked as the result of
magic
>that used to be the bailiwick of mages.

Was this ever the case, though?  The easiest "invis"
potion I know of is located in an area that's been in the game
for quite a while.  Not Galadon.  I'm skeptical that
cheap/easy invisibility is a "recent" development.

>Was this ever the case, though?  The easiest
"invis" potion I
>know of is located in an area that's been in the game for
>quite a while.  Not Galadon.  I'm skeptical that
cheap/easy
>invisibility is a "recent" development.

Nope, I've stated that preps have always been part of the
game. But tell me this, with the knowledge you have of where
to get that pot, can I acquire 30 of the in an hour?  Can I
spend one gaming session and have enough of those pots
stockpiled so that I can easily make a hundred gank attempts
using them and not have to worry about losing them if I die
because they're essentially in the bank?

>can I acquire 30 of the in an hour?  Can I
>spend one gaming session and have enough of those pots
>stockpiled so that I can easily make a hundred gank
attempts
>using them and not have to worry about losing them if I
die
>because they're essentially in the bank?

Not sure about 30 in an hour, but they're not that expensive. 
But, then again, neither are detect invis preps. I want to say
the invis potion I'm thinking of costs about 2x what the most
common detect invis prep does.

>Not sure about 30 in an hour, but they're not that
expensive. 
>But, then again, neither are detect invis preps. I want to
say
>the invis potion I'm thinking of costs about 2x what the
most
>common detect invis prep does.
>

Are they in an out-of-the-way place? Or can I walk to a bank,
get the money and buy one in say... 10 seconds and still be in
close proximity to noob ranking areas?  Can I buy heal, cure,
fly potions there too?

Dude - roll a character with built in detect invis and find something else to make 20 posts about if you want to work on getting better at this game. RP that you were a "insert class here that you'd rather play" but couldn't make it because invisible warriors killed your parents. You're making a fool out of yourself. :P

>Dude - roll a character with built in detect invis and find
>something else to make 20 posts about if you want to work on
>getting better at this game. RP that you were a "insert class
>here that you'd rather play" but couldn't make it because
>invisible warriors killed your parents. You're making a fool
>out of yourself. :P

Over the years I've seen lots of changes to this game. I still recall my necro having to tank for a group (correct me if I'm mistaken but I think that it was at a place called the white tower) because I was the only one dressed in full plate mail. Yes, a necro sword wielding tank and I didn't do half bad. The ability to do just that has been nerfed, and I applaud that. Now, specific types of gear is designed to be worn by specific classes which is much closer to reality than the way it used to be and balances out the classes with what should be a tradeoff. Warriors become tanky, Mages become squishy. Warriors can't cast spells but mages can't tank.

So, if you think I'm making a fool out of myself by trying to promote a change that will not only bring the game another step closer to the balance and reality it's worked toward but will also reduce the detrimental effect that 'low exp pen char's have on noobs in what's still noob central, then so be it, I'm a fool.

Why play anything but a warrior when you can have not only a
mage but your own personal healer in your backpack?

[ 1   400] a yellow potion of refresh                 (potion)
[ 1   800] a translucent potion of invisibility       (potion)
[ 1   800] a gray potion of flying                    (potion)
[ 1  3000] a black potion of negation                 (potion)
[ 1   150] an orange potion of armor                  (potion)
[ 5  2000] a vial of holy water                       (potion)
[ 1   800] an effervescent yellow vial of curing blindness
(potion)
[ 1  5600] a milky-gray bottle of antidote            (potion)
[ 8  1800] a potion of curing critical wounds         (potion)
[ 5   600] a potion of curing serious wounds          (potion)
[ 1   400] a potion of curing light wounds            (potion)
[20  3900] a potion of divine protection              (potion)
[15  5000] a sky blue potion of healing               (potion)

Given I hear the opposite from a lot of folks, about OTHER
classes being better/wiping them. From necrosleep to just
invoker spell damage (with their protections.

As an observation, there isn't even a warrior in the current
top 15 in PKs.

-Ish

That was just an example. It's a complaint about how easy it
is to get some incredible preps.  

Preps have always been a part of CF. I was munching on flowers
and fish my first days into the game. I get that. But most
took some effort or knowledge to get. When I saw that list,
what, 5 steps from Market Square? I was dumbfounded.  That
collection gives melee classes some of the major benefits of
being a mage AND a healer, all bottled up and ready to go.  

I never... NEVER... worried about some solo warrior spamming
invis for over an hour to make me think he'd logged out. Till
now that is.  I saw exactly that with my own eyes. Until I
found that list, I was certain their was cheating involved.
And the amazing part, there was no RP reason for him to try to
kill me.  He couldn't even come up with one. He spent that
coin trying to kill me simply for his own amusement. What does
that tell you?

That potion merchant has been selling those goods for nearly
as long as I can remember, though they might have been
(somewhat) recently renamed for clarity/ease of use.

Well, that explains why I never saw or noticed them before.  I
haven't played in few years but I don't recall seeing them
there.  Trust me, had I been aware of them and realized how
easy they were to get, I would have altered my methods.

You're not wrong that warriors tend to benefit
disproportionately from the ease of access to magic that other
classes spend their power budget acquiring, but the Galadon
potion merchant is not what I could consider to be
representative of this phenomenon outside of very low-level
play.

Every class fares differently at varying levels of play, and
some are far more challenging based on racial/spec decisions.
If I may ask, what race/class/level were you playing?

Some will read this and know who I was.  Let's just say it was
a challenging race/class combo in the lower-middle levels. 
But, I've played that race/class combo in the past and know
most of it's low level weaknesses. And with my skills at
running and the fact that xp loss is no longer a factor, pvp
deaths are not something I typically worry about. Plus, with
the sweet xp bonus over the weekend, I was even less concerned
about mob deaths.

What I do not ever recall, and this is well over 100 attempts
at this game, is the ease and frequency of which non mages
were coming after me solo and invis.  Solo, non mages? Yea,
I've had lots. Invis mages? Yep, plenty of those.  Solo invis
non mages?  4 times? I had a wtf moment.

>but the Galadon
>potion merchant is not what I could consider to be
>representative of this phenomenon outside of very
low-level
>play.

None of those attempts on me were from anyone looking for a
challenge. I was fighting NPC's each time. Looking at their
gear, both of them were much more experienced than I. And
their RP reasons were either non-existent or lame at best.
Yet, they didn't hesitate to spend the coin to mask their
approach and get the easy kill.

So if you say this is a low level 'phenomenon' then tell me,
seriously, do experienced players really need the benefit of
invis potions (and holy ####, fly potions too?), correction,
EASY TO GET invis potions, to gank noobs? Isn't their gear and
other prep knowledge enough of an advantage?  And I say noobs
because I know for a fact I wasn't the only one that warrior
or the shaman used that technique on.

CF has always been brutal for noobs. I expect that. I dunno if
it was just my bad luck this time or what, but experienced AND
invis non-melee players was over the top for me.

I don't know the specifics of what went down with you, so I
can't really opine on the actions of those who killed you, or
their skill level relative to yours.

There are players ingame who are willing to take newbies
(oldbies?) such as yourself under their wing which can help
you get up to speed faster. If you want to try an easier
race/class combo to help you hit your stride, that might also
help ameliorate the difficulties of getting re-acclimated to
the game (I personally do this after a hiatus).

I can empathize with your frustration (I've been there), but
it is a little unreasonable to expect to be competitive with
more experienced players right out of the gate. Sure they used
a few minor preps, but how is a guy who never met your
character before to know you're easy to beat?

>a few minor preps, but how is a guy who never met your
>character before to know you're easy to beat?

It doesn't take a lot of experience to discover that if you
whack a low level gnome with a mace, they're likely going to
die.  If you chop a low level thief with an axe, they're
likely going to die.  If you beat a low level elf with iron,
they're likely going to die.  Furthermore, it's not like a
character can hide their gear.  I know all about triggers and
targeting. And anyone with any skill in mud clients need only
to walk past a potential target, trigger a glance, and they
have an instant reference of all the gear that character is
wearing.

And this has nothing to do with being competitive. I
reiterate. This is about granting unreasonable magical powers
to non mage classes which can be stockpiled like a stack of
Pringles without requiring any real effort to acquire, which
by default, gives an even bigger advantage over noobs to
experienced players, as if they really needed more.

In less than an hour I can have the funds needed to join a
thieves guild... at level 7 mind you.  That same amount of
money will buy 15 fly and 15 invis potions and have some
change left over without haggle.  And even if they are treated
as limited and can't be stacked (which I didn't personally
test). You can still keep running back to the vendor and buy
more because it's not like they're in any out of the way place
that takes any effort to get to.

And any time that a player can keep spamming a prep like fly
or invis (neither of which I consider to be minor as one
totally negates a skill (trip) and the other requires a non
mage to spam a counter prep (DI) and is a contradiction to
what you said earlier about warriors benefiting
disproportionately) without a concern for the cost or even
having to put forth that much effort then there's a mechanic
busted somewhere.

And as for those players willing to help.  I know they're out
there. But, if you've played this game for even a week and
haven't developed a sense of paranoia, you're doing it wrong.
If you play any evil class or race, everyone IS out to get
you.  Even if you roll an Elf, you have no idea if that Dwarf
warrior isn't playing someone with bipolar disorder and shoves
hot iron up your ass during one of his 'episodes.'  And, if
you play a neutral then you get bashed by goodies for helping
evils and then get bashed by evils for getting bashed by
goodies.  So I've learned the hard way. Unless someone
contacts  me, I keep my fat mouth shut.  And even then I
expect to get ganked.  "Hey, come join me and
so-in-so."  Three minutes later I'm a naked ghost staring
at the healer with no gear left.  Yes, those things have
happened to me, including the bipolar Dwarf.  So you'll
forgive me if I don't stand in Market Square screaming,
"Hi, I'm a noob. Anyone wanna help me?"

You see what you've done here.  I've digressed into blatant
sarcasm when this is about, what I think, is a serious defect
that even further widens the gap between new and old players. 
This list is some pretty powerful stuff and is ENTIRELY too
easy to get, even for me.

This is no lie.  Before I deleted I saw two warriors in
Galadon running around and fighting. Both of them ended up
standing in the apothecary beating each other over the head,
trying to keep the other one from buying pots and getting an
advantage.  Is that seriously what this game has become? 
(Yea, that's how I discovered that list.)

>do experienced players really need the benefit of
>invis potions [...], correction,
>EASY TO GET invis potions, to gank noobs?

In your original post you mentioned how you're pretty good at
spamming "who" and "where" so that nobody
gets the drop on you.  If that's true, doesn't it sort of
argue that, yes, vets *do* need invis in order to kill you,
since otherwise you're likely to spot them on
"where" and take evasive action?

>>do experienced players really need the benefit of
>>invis potions [...], correction,
>>EASY TO GET invis potions, to gank noobs?
>
>In your original post you mentioned how you're pretty good
at
>spamming "who" and "where" so that
nobody gets the drop on
>you.  If that's true, doesn't it sort of argue that, yes,
vets
>*do* need invis in order to kill you, since otherwise
you're
>likely to spot them on "where" and take evasive
action?

In order to kill ME? Likely so and as I pointed out even
that's no guarantee I won't escape. But do you seriously think
that all new players or or even those that have played for a
few weeks are going spend the money and the time it took me to
perfect scrolls so I'd have a better chance of escape? Are
they going to have the wits to not spam flee and quaff a
return potion when 'someone' appears, trips them and drives an
axe in their skull?

I can promise you. I was not the only one they did that to.

The advantage that those pots give doesn't paint a bullseye on
just my ass.

>In order to kill ME? Likely so...

Then why in the world would you begrudge them using invis
potions if it's likely the only way they're going to kill you?

>do you seriously think
>that all new players or or even those that have played for
a
>few weeks are going spend the money and the time it took
me to
>perfect scrolls so I'd have a better chance of escape?

No, I don't expect that at all.  I would expect new players to
take the typical advice and play a class with built-in
detects.  Or, failing that, to buy/barter for pills since
they're less expensive than scrolls.  Or, if you're talking
about scrolls for return/teleport, to use potions.

>Are they going to have the wits to not spam flee and quaff
a
>return potion when 'someone' appears, trips them and
drives an
>axe in their skull?

No, probably not.  But this thread started off with you
complaining about how untenable the situation is [b]for you in
particular[/b] and not some hypothetical guy who only started
playing two weeks ago.

Another thought- how is this much different from hide and
camo?  If you don't object to concealment in general, what's
special about quaffable invis?

>>In order to kill ME? Likely so...
>
>Then why in the world would you begrudge them using invis
>potions if it's likely the only way they're going to kill
>you?

I am not unkillable. By far.  But with all the other
advantages vets get they certainly don't need yet another that
forces me to pack around another prep just to see them coming.
 Furthermore, do they really need a prep that totally negates
one of the few ways that new players have to lag them should
the tables get turned.

>No, probably not.  But this thread started off with you
>complaining about how untenable the situation is [b]for
you in
>particular[/b] and not some hypothetical guy who only
started
>playing two weeks ago.

Does it matter?  If I've already decided to give up again, do
you think I'd be wasting my time arguing this point if it were
going to affect just me?

>Another thought- how is this much different from hide and
>camo?  If you don't object to concealment in general,
what's
>special about quaffable invis?

I was in a spot where both hide and camo would have had to
reveal themselves before standing on my head. Invis was the
only thing that could have remained unseen for the entire
approach.  

Furthermore, should I decide to come back, could you kindly
point me to a place where I can get a buttload of camo pots
that requires little effort?  I wanna sit in the Weald with a
thief and terrorize noob rangers.  That seems fair since
warriors can cast mage spells, transmuter spells, priest buffs
and heals, I want my thief to have ranger skills.

Fly is an advantage given to a very select group of mages and
races and in each case, it's a tradeoff.  If you don't think
it's earned, try soloing an arcane in academy gear to lvl 10. 
Handing it out like candy not only requires 0 tradeoff it
cheapens the entire arcane class. Who needs them. I can pot
fly any time I want and it's right there in Galadon.

While I've learned to live with it, my feelings wouldn't be
hurt in the least if all preps were removed from the game. 
Everyone has become entirely too dependant on them.  You need
preps to gank and preps to keep from being ganked.  IMHO, if
your class doesn't have it built-in, you can't use it.  

And yea, my class wasn't a mage so I shouldn't have escaped 3
of those fights using scrolls. I should've had to rely my
skills and wits.  Instead, I relied on a prep and a 4 letter
client alias.  But this isn't a game about skills and wits,
it's a game about toys and preps (at least at lower levels). 
And that list is over the top.

And this is not just me bitching about getting ganked as a
result of a cheap prep. This is me speaking from the
standpoint that should I come back I could buy gobs of them
and go on my own noob killing rampage and not even break a
sweat doing it.

And not that many use invis potions.

Detect invis Scrolls are expensive because of their short
duration.  (I used them with my last thief just so I'd improve
at scroll use over time, until I decided it was too expensive
and too short duration.) Black roots last ages and really take
the effort out of countering invis.

Depending on your class there is also free detect invis in the
form of talisman lying around.

Also, water generally stops invis working if you are under
water.

Can walk in and get it at level 1 far as I know, though I
admit my knowledge is not as on point as it once was.

Of all the things to be angry about, invis potions are a new
one though. Frequent use of who and where and count commands
make it all sort of easy to determine if the guy in your range
is just invis or logged out. 

And as people have noted, you can't be invis underwater, so if
you're really worried and don't want to maintain detect invis
preps, rank under water. I think you can reliably rank pretty
much 11-51 under water if you wanted to. 

>Of all the things to be angry about, invis potions are a
new
>one though. Frequent use of who and where and count
commands
>make it all sort of easy to determine if the guy in your
range
>is just invis or logged out. 

It's not just about the use of them. CF has always handed out
magic to non mages in the form of preps. It's about giving
that much magic and healing ability to non-mages and
non-healers without having to put forth any real effort.  If
the invis potions are limited to one and were in Seantryn, I'd
be fine with that.  If the fly potions were in Hillcrest and
limited to one, I'd be fine with that.  But that list, right
there in Galadon, puts too much power in the hands of
non-mages without having to go anywhere to get it.  It also
means, in my case for example, when the warrior failed on his
first attempt, he was ready to make yet another attempt using
the same preps just minutes later.  And he repeated that
technique again and again, on me and others.

If I remember correctly, fish use to give stoneskin, or some
other such buff.  At one point, everyone was running around
looking like a fish monger.  It was finally realized that that
gave too much power to players who knew where to get the prep
and was, I assume, eventually nerfed.  Not certain, I haven't
looked for it in years but I haven't seen anyone specifically
using it.

That list, imho, is even worse. That's too much magic and
healing within easy grasp of those who don't want to pay the
price of being a squishy mage or the effort it takes to get a
healer empowered.

Several of you have pointed out that DI preps and items are
all over the place. And I'm aware of that.  But, I know of
nowhere else that you can find THAT many powerful preps in one
spot and not have to walk that far from a recall spot.

There are many ways I could have been prepared. Not realizing
those potions existed right there in Galadon and were that
easy to get was unexpected.

I know where I can find berries that cure poison.  And they're
pretty easy to get to.  But, they're on the other side of the
map from Galadon and they have the side effect that they may
put you to sleep.
Plus, it's not like I can find cure plague, cure blindness,
heal berries, fly berries or invis berries, all in the same
area.

What's the downside to any of those potions on that list other
than they cost money?

AND, you guys have responded with at least half a dozen DI
preps.  How many of those can I find less than 2 seconds from
a recall point AND have a bank essentially right beside me
where I can (mostly) safely withdraw coin should I forget to
bring any?

From my perspective, it's usually easier to raise coin (or
barter items) and buy your DI preps in bulk rather than
relying on the free ones you can get on the ground.  The
pick-up-for-free ones are handy, though, if you're already
ranking in the same area (or very nearby).  In that case it
doesn't "cost" you any additional time/effort to
just pick it up each time you make a pass through the area.

>From my perspective, it's usually easier to raise coin (or
>barter items) and buy your DI preps in bulk 

And that sir, is my point exactly.  And in this case, it
doesn't apply to just DI preps.  Those invis and fly pots are
entirely too easy to get.

>>From my perspective, it's usually easier to raise coin
(or
>>barter items) and buy your DI preps in bulk 
>
>And that sir, is my point exactly.  And in this case, it
>doesn't apply to just DI preps.  Those invis and fly pots
are
>entirely too easy to get.

I don't get how this buttresses your point.  Also, what do
flight potions have to do with anything?

>I don't get how this buttresses your point.  

Because all you need is coin and I can get that with almost 0
risk.  

>Also, what do flight potions have to do with anything?

I answered that in a reply to one of your other comments.