To play a bit of devils advocate here, I noticed that there are a lot of people asking to change Lich's/Ap's or outright nerf them in some cases. After reading these posts and seeing that the issue is split right down the middle, I figured I would toss out some arguments as to why they should be kept the way they are.

FIRST: The people that manage to get these classes to the point that they are uber have put in the time, the risk, and the effort to do so. Why force them to have to be at a disadvantage just because they managed to acheieve such an accomplishment? Isn't the purpose of leveling up a character to try and get it to the point where you are very hard to kill? Or am I missing something here? Because if we start nerfing people because they are powerful, I can think of a few warriors recently that should probably have had all their weapons turned into padded practice ones and forced them to use only scan to look around.

SECOND! I have read arguments that classes like the Lich have no place in CF anymore. IE cause they can only die through CON loss and not age,etc. I make an argument to the contrary! Should we lose characters like Ahteli(sp?), to quote the most recent one I can think of, we would lose a huge dynamic of the game. These ultra powerful mages are supposed to make people afraid and turn tail and run. Apart from that, as they gain in fame, it should paint a huge target on them for the more skilled players out there. Wouldn't you want one of your characters to be able to claim that they were the first, or last, or whatever to take down that lich and end its nightmarish reign over Thera? My opinin Lichs should be thought of as player controlled bosses; you just need to beat on them enough, or take the time to learn their tactics, and then bring them down.

Now I can already hear a bunch of people winding up to start yelling, "BUT IT/HE/SHE IS ALWAYS PREPPED AND BECAUSE HE/SHE/IT IS ALWAYS IN A CABAL/NOT IN A CABAL/ALWAYS FLYING/ALWAYS WHATEVER, THEY CANNOT BE BEAT! I MEAN, THEY ARE SKILLED, SO...YOU KNOW! YEAH!" Even the most badass player out there can be taken down as long as you take the time to learn how to fight them. Even people in other threads have said that you just need skill, and occasionally the right amount of luck, for things to work out the way that they do.

Isn't that the same for about all the classes out there? If the warrior misses his bash on the mage, it is quite possible the mage might have a chance to beat the warrior by spelling him up (and by the way I am not taking into account ABS or any of that jazz, that's an argument for another thread). Or maybe if the Lich misses his (insert random lich spell here) the enemy he is fighting might have a chance to turn it around and bash/trip/newbiebreadzlootsroxxorz him down and actually seal the kill.

THIRD: Don't you want ultra hard enemies to fight? I mean, from what I have seen, the amount of skill for PVP in this MUD is amazing. People here can take other players out without batting an eye and do it over and over again. Aren't we due for an enemy that can actually give back as good as it gets then? I mean, I know I like slaughtering baby seals as much as the next guy, but seriously how many times can you kill the same dude in the same way without it becoming boring? Or even fifteen different guys, who all use the same tactics, withot it becoming boring? The lich/powerful AP forces you to think outside the box when you encounter one.

Which type of player is this? How should I lead off? Do I need to bash him down? Or, as I figure they should be, will they be prepped to the teeth and I need to figure out a way to get past those defensives?

To me, all the bitching that I am hearing about how powerful they are is tucked into the center of this very thinking..."I KEN NO BASH DOWNS.......HIMS TOO POWERFULS!" and then we go to the boards going all ape #### about how they need to have the code changed, or they need to have their power dropped down, etc. My opinion? Why not just sack up and step up to the plate, maybe die, maybe win, and have a good time? I know some of the most memorable fights that I have ever had, were against foes that I knew that I could never beat, and I still gave it my all and tried. At least the player on the other side of the screen may give you some props for trying and keep other people from looting your water canteen or whatever it is you Heroes are all concerned about. And even if they do...........go get the item back? Just a thought.


Feel free to flame, troll, whatever in response. I am just looking to see what people have to say.

News flash, everybody on this ####ing MUD wants to be Rambo. We should have called it RamboMUD. ~Daevryn~

the design of both the a-p and the lich is such that you gain power by not taking risks. This behvior is balanced in the begining as both classes can be pretty weak right out the gate but when they start hitting the tipping point and still play conservatively it becomes dull.

I mean any mage that decides they want to play to never die, should really never die except to the bizzare super terrible teleport.

I still push that the answer to combatting conservatism is making it harder to be conservative, limit magical mobility options and you will make the game more fun all around.

I mean when you think about it people can beat the liches and super a-p's the problem is that when they are uber prepped and conservative putting them in a position where a killing blow will happen is rare. If you got full abs up (and usually both these classes have some to way more then that) you have a lot of time to decide hey its time to retreat and then you have word which is a single command, or hold orb, again single command, or flee teleport which is 2 and bringing enough stopping power to actually stop all those incredibly easy options means your easy to see coming and easy to avoid.


though to be honest i wish i had a hero range assassin right now, no empress means no more detect hidden and considering how much time she spends every login creating zombies she should be bait. either A she gets assassinated by walking to keep zombies or B she teleports and you kill her zombies and then ahtieli cry's threatens to full sac you and quits.

I don't think there's a single answer to the question "What should be done about powerful characters". There will ALWAYS be characters that seem overpowered, for one reason or another, and in many cases they're good for the game.

I'll digress with a quick anecdote. Way back in the day, I was pals with the guy who played Gareth (though I haven't talked to him in years now). One weekend a few of us were staying with him in his dorm room in Minneapolis for the weekend, in January. Now, there isn't much to do in Minneapolis in January that doesn't involve freezing to death, so naturally we planned on staying in and playing CF. Woe is us, however: CF goes down for like a week straight, starting right then. So instead we hatch this plan to go kill things on a wimpy CF clone mud that shall remain nameless. We know nothing about this mud, except that it started out as a CF clone and evolved to its current point. We roll up three characters, follow Gareth, and he proceeds to take us on a slaughter of everyone in the game until the imms ban us.

The moral of this little story? We gave Gareth a completely different environment, with new skills, classes, races, areas and players, then set him loose and he was an instant killing machine. (He's by no means the only player like this.) Overpowered combos aren't a problem until they end up in the hands of a player who can fully utilize it.

But there's more: people can tolerate overpowered combos in the hands of extremely skilled players. It's all in how the aforementioned player uses it. A lot of characters that rack up tons of kills, also take lots of risks to do it. This seems particularly true with warriors, who can roll with hundreds of kills but also forty or fifty deaths. To use Istendil as an example, he was hugely powerful, but (it seemed to me like) he took lots of risks with that power, including anathing himself and taking on pretty much everyone. Of course he hardly ever died, but he definitely took chances.

These sorts of really powerful characters played by really skilled players are iconic, and a huge part of what makes the game fun. These are the characters we all talk about years later.

The thing that really seems to put a damper on it all is when a number of things converge. For example, a skilled player gets a very powerful combo, then plays conservatively, then sticks around forever. Give them a leadership position and it's even worse. Anyway, it seems like liches encourage this particular set of behaviors. No age death, and lots of ways to keep themselves alive that someone like a balls-to-the-wall warrior lacks. Why doesn't this happen more often? I think because the person playing the character decides not to let it end up that way. At least, more often than not.

If you've read my rambling this far, I'm impressed! My conclusion, or the tl;dr version:

We don't need any hard-coded fix to super-powerful characters. Very powerful characters can add a great dynamic to the game. The solution is to have occasional imm intervention when it's needed to make sure these sorts of characters don't fall in to conservative stagnation. That could take the form of removing someone from leadership, or it could take the form of a roleplay conversation to light a fire under their ass, or whatever else may be appropriate for that situation. So to the imms: please remember to shake things up every once in a while, if they get too stagnant.

Aarn

My name is WarMage and I fully endorse this message.

I agree whole heartedly with everything stated above.

News flash, everybody on this ####ing MUD wants to be Rambo. We should have called it RamboMUD. ~Daevryn~

>We don't need any hard-coded fix to super-powerful characters.
> Very powerful characters can add a great dynamic to the game.
> The solution is to have occasional imm intervention when it's
>needed to make sure these sorts of characters don't fall in to
>conservative stagnation.

This is basically looks lik this:
1) We don't see a problem with the current setup (because we hope it will never happen).
2) When it actually happen, instead of admitting that the problem exists, we just manually fix it in an "unfair" way to a player and then continue to pretend that the problem doesn't exist.

>This is basically looks lik this:
>1) We don't see a problem with the current setup (because we
>hope it will never happen).
>2) When it actually happen, instead of admitting that the
>problem exists, we just manually fix it in an "unfair" way to
>a player and then continue to pretend that the problem doesn't
>exist.

What are you talking about? Allow me to correct your summary of my post for you:

1) Problems can occur in the form of stagnating, conservative, powerful characters, but they're the exception and not the rule.
2) When it does happen, the way to fix the problem is through imm intervention that is tailored to the situation and character at hand.

Hope that helps.

Aarn

Things get boring when they don't change. Ahtielli getting demoted is probably the only major interesting event that's made it onto the forums since he liched becaues he hasn't died to anyone or done anything interesting with his all-powerful empress position.

At least if Ravon mark II continued to dominate, we could all have shots at him and try to end his reign early. But eventually at 800 hours he'd be forced into bowing out victorious through age death. Liches don't have this, and it becomes boring. Maybe not as quickly as dying to a string of annihilates in melee does, but it does get stale.

Which I can agree with. I mean having a leader in a spot like that for such a long period of time would make things stagnate no doubt. But then wouldn't it make more sense that instead of putting a limit on the power of the Lich or how they are able to live, to put a limit on the amount of time that a given character can hold a leader spot in any cabal?

To me I think that would make more sense becuase then, if it so happens that another Lich takes the throne, people might be able to bide their time. Something along the lines of what Nexus does maybe? A leader has the position for a month, and then a vote -has- to be done? OR, because it is an Emperor and they wouldn't really give a #### if their people weren't happy, they can hold it for a longer but finite period of time? That way enemies know that "soon there is going to be another Emperor and as soon as that Lich gets his bony ass booted from the throne I am gunning for him."

????

News flash, everybody on this ####ing MUD wants to be Rambo. We should have called it RamboMUD. ~Daevryn~

RP......

Cabal leadership is meant for Mortals. mortal leadership. Immortals in the background, helping give guidance and support to the leader.


What about.....

Any character can only be LEADER of a cabal, up to the point where they age die (or WOULD have age died)

Once a lich/mummy passes the age where they would have died, they are no longer exactly mortal.

They aren't Avatars, like the least powerful Gods of Cf...but they aren't purely mortal either.

I'd say this shouldn't be retroactive....but for any future chars.


once they pass the hours where they would have age died, the code mechanically strips leadership.