It seems to me that newbie types are pretty much crippled by this. Even as a veteran player you need to know a very obscure quest to gather quality detect invis preps. If you know how to use scrolls you are a little better off but for warriors you are in serious trouble. The more common detect invis for warriors are expensive and the duration kinda sucks. I think there should be a quality detect invis prep in cities that warriors can use. Maybe make them more expensive than the questy detect invis but at least have them accessible and of a quality price and duration for the less experienced players.

I would actually be more in favor of making detect invis preps harder to come by. As it stands right now, pretty much anyone who is competant is going to see invisble past the rank of 20-25 ish. Past 35, I would say most can see it. Other than getting past some mobs it tends to be almost not worth it the further you grow in rank.

I think regular invis should work like improved invis, and improved invis should render you undetectable by everyone.

Then A. You are playing an invoker or B. You've never played an invoker.

Complete undectability on an invoker would be insane.

I just think invis means damn little, and should be given more oomph. Having 90% of the worlds population walking around, able to see invisible people at all times is just retarded to me.

>I would actually be more in favor of making detect invis
>preps harder to come by. As it stands right now, pretty much
>anyone who is competant is going to see invisble past the rank
>of 20-25 ish. Past 35, I would say most can see it. Other
>than getting past some mobs it tends to be almost not worth it
>the further you grow in rank.


Invisibility is a VERY low level spell that is also readily available to non-spellcasters. The vast majority of low level spells become less useful as you gain in rank. For example, you might find that some people don't even practice armor, let alone use it at level 51. I can't imagine the amount of re-balancing it would take if the Imms ramped up invisibility's utility. Frankly, it would be ugly. U G L Y.

Actually, invisibility seems a bit useless at times, when most other characters will be able to see you anyways- because of the easiness in obtaining detect invis preps.

You can literally get 10 of these in ten minutes once you reach the low twenties. And improve commerce skills at the same time!

Though obviously, invisibility is still essential for a mage to avoid those rager-to-be's and ragers who do not yet have truesight.

Writing as a newbie who has looked around a little, I can say
I'm pretty much certain the situation is fine the way it is.
There is a really, really steep learning curve when for a new player, though, no question :)

Detect invis was a huge challenge for my very first character and continues to be a time drain and challenge for my subsequent characters but I never thought it was unbalanced or inappropriate, and when I looked around a little I learned plenty of ways to deal with it. They cost time, but again, that's part of game balance, and was one of my first experiences with how elegant the balance in this game is at the moment.

The biggest challenge to newbies are the characters who are well aware they are targeting newbies and still sac everything after every kill, and that's not a coded problem. Regearing and recollecting enough gold for stuff is a major trauma when you don't know anything and you're very slow to do things. Without help, a newbie is likely to get killed 3 more times and lose all her gear again and again without ever collecting anything in the process, and start wondering about the point of playing. If that didn't happen, getting killed by someone and losing only the one or two nice gift things someone generously handed to you would be no big deal.

Someone who wants third attack before level 20 and immediate 24/7 detect invis can play an anti paladin or duergar. Otherwise, it's probably a good idea to for a new player to play an assassin. There are built in checks and balances there to allow that and not upset the game. I was never tempted to do so even after the 6th time in 2 days my giant warrior was destroyed by a sneak attack from an invisible high level human conjurer and lost everything, but I'll agree it was very frustrating.

I tend to agree, which is why I tend to stay away from warriors and other classes without built-in detect invis. It was less of an issue when money was easier to come by. Even the scrolls you mentioned, if they're the same ones I'm thinking of, require completion of a non-intuitive quest.

There's at least one detect invis source that's preferable to flowers, but I've yet to rank a non-detect character to a sufficient level to actually purchase it. Think it's somewhere in the low 20s. It may be one of the barter-only ones Qaledus mentioned- I'm not certain.

>It seems to me that newbie types are pretty much crippled by
>this. Even as a veteran player you need to know a very
>obscure quest to gather quality detect invis preps.

And those things are not going to become the standard
fare in shops because you find them inconvenient.

>The more common detect invis for warriors are expensive
>and the duration kinda sucks.

Living with 'kinda sucks' in this department is part of
being a warrior though, or non-svirf/non-mage in general.

That said, you can do better than flowers in two places,
but the shopkeepers are barter-only which might be a
little inconvenient for some people.

Never did I state that I found them inconvenient. However, I have been playing this game for 12 years or however long it is that this mud has been around. I speak, in person, to about 10 people that I recently introduced to CF. I knew there was a steep learning curve to this game but I never realized how true that actually was until I watched these people play.

If that's the way the immstaff wants the detects to work out that's totally fine, it's your game, it's your prerogative. Like I said it's no skin off my back, I do perfectly fine with the experience I have.

>Never did I state that I found them inconvenient. However, I
>have been playing this game for 12 years or however long it is
>that this mud has been around. I speak, in person, to about
>10 people that I recently introduced to CF. I knew there was
>a steep learning curve to this game but I never realized how
>true that actually was until I watched these people play.
>
>If that's the way the immstaff wants the detects to work out
>that's totally fine, it's your game, it's your prerogative.
>Like I said it's no skin off my back, I do perfectly fine with
>the experience I have.

..ok, sub out 'they are inconvenient' for 'you find them
inconvenient' if that got your pulse up.

And you never know, when item standardization is complete,
maybe having detect invis potions for sale in Galadon will
seem like a non-terrible idea somehow.

In the meantime, there's at least one better than flowers
that's like 10 steps from Galadon. :)

>..ok, sub out 'they are inconvenient' for 'you find them
>inconvenient' if that got your pulse up.
>
>And you never know, when item standardization is complete,
>maybe having detect invis potions for sale in Galadon will
>seem like a non-terrible idea somehow.
>
>In the meantime, there's at least one better than flowers
>that's like 10 steps from Galadon. :)


Okay sounds good. I quit smoking 13 hours ago and I am rather irritable.

>>..ok, sub out 'they are inconvenient' for 'you find them
>>inconvenient' if that got your pulse up.
>>
>>And you never know, when item standardization is complete,
>>maybe having detect invis potions for sale in Galadon will
>>seem like a non-terrible idea somehow.
>>
>>In the meantime, there's at least one better than flowers
>>that's like 10 steps from Galadon. :)
>
>
>Okay sounds good. I quit smoking 13 hours ago and I am rather
>irritable.
>

I sense that. ;)

Do not confuse newbie with lowbie please! I am not saying that detect invis preps should be available at all ranks for all types of players. I am saying for those greenhorn types who manage to make it to level 25+ are pretty much screwed. They have their yellow flowers which rape their pocketbook and make them much less of a player because they can't buy return potions and or teleport potions.

And as for what Nepenthe said about giving lowbie mages a chance to survive at the low ranks.....I might argue that it's more of a hassle for warriors at higher ranks to keep up constant detect invis up than it is for lowbie mages to survive at the lower ranks. Dwell on that.

Seriously man are you still drunk or hung over from the weekend?? There are PLEANTY of preps out there for the warriors who use them after 25 that ARE cheap and you can find. Again we'll go back to the old saying, "Ask IC." Simple as that. I've only had 1 person out of maybe a dozen ask me where I bought some of my preps for my warrior. ONE!! If they don't ask, I don't tell. Simple as that.

Are you trying to make it useless except against low level mobs?

>Are you trying to make it useless except against low level
>mobs?

The idea of it is that low-level classes should have a hard time getting detect invis. Why, you might ask? Because an important trick in a mage's arsenal at low ranks is surviving with the invis spell.

When many classes can one or two-round a mage with a relatively easy-to-get set of gear, mages need something to balance that out. Enter hard-to-get preps. You may not like it, given that you're on the other side of the fence, but what, pre-20, has that mage got to kill you with? Invokers, sure, might have a damage spell and get lucky with two or three of them. You also have easy access to return potions and the invoker can't keep you in the fight to finish you off. Necromancers can spell you up and hope to get that lucky kill, but again, it's not in their best interests to stay when they miss the sleep. Conjurers, again, what have they got? A familiar, that when it dies takes deaths off you? No, sorry, I'm not using that. Shapeshifters might have ferret which is easily beaten by a decent set of gear. I know, I've tried it with a 450 hp set and been routed time and time again by that warrior who hasn't got the best set of gear but is outparrying and surely outdamaging me. How about transmuters? How is a transmuter pre-20 going to kill you, as a warrior, alone? They're not, most of the time, since again, you'll outdamage them and outattack them with a weapon they can't parry. Axe and sword come to mind but there's others and surely you know that.

Keep in mind that the most mages get in terms of defense is parry (which is often not feasible to master by the time they hit 20) and shield block for conjurers, again a hard feat to do by 20th level.

The only class that really and truly benefits from having the spell pre-20 is anti-paladins, and very often a prepared warrior who knows what they're doing can take them to school as well at that level.

On the other side of the fence, it's very easy to keep the mage in the fight, as per no bash protection and many mages aren't flying 24/7. Trip and bash, maybe if you're a thug thief you've got cheap shot and the fight is essentially over through perma-lag. If mages don't have invis, they lose an important part of that balance when you don't have your ####ty preps up. ####ty preps at a low rank breed not using said preps, which is again as Nepenthe said not completely important.

>>Are you trying to make it useless except against low level
>>mobs?

That stuff was the ####. I wish something had been given to us to replace it. The yellow flowers are worthless as far as I'm concerned now. They're priced out of reach for the average low ranking character, at least they are if you want frequent detect invis.

That said, there are a number of places where one can get free detect invis. You gotta do some exploring, but there are some available. I'd like to see the duration of them increased across the board though. There are a few where there is only one of them per area and waiting the 5+ ticks for the repop sucks. By the time you have 3 you've blown the duration of the first. Ghetto.

As one of the area writers for HTS I think the fix for both the green potions and the opal wand were going overboard. There are hidden containers in that area that, as far as I'm aware, have never been used to store anything. That brings me to the clear potion. This is a detect invis prep that was beneficial mainly for lower ranks, but which is now in a location that cannot be accessed until 25+. You threw that potion out with the opal wand bathwater. Why not move it to one of the aforementioned previously-unused hidden containers that have already been coded?

>As one of the area writers for HTS I think the fix for both
>the green potions and the opal wand were going overboard.

This baffles me. We didn't create the locked + other restrictions door for that room. We didn't create the mob that guards the door, its special and possibly frustrating immunity, or the key to the door.

The ONLY thing we added after the fact was set the door to start locked, which from the design looked like an oversight, given the existance of all of the above.

>There are hidden containers in that area that, as far as I'm
>aware, have never been used to store anything. That brings me
>to the clear potion. This is a detect invis prep that was
>beneficial mainly for lower ranks, but which is now in a
>location that cannot be accessed until 25+. You threw that
>potion out with the opal wand bathwater. Why not move it to
>one of the aforementioned previously-unused hidden containers
>that have already been coded?

Detect invis isn't supposed to be especially easy for low level classes that don't get it. It's meant to be one of the defenses of the lowbie mage classes that it's not trivial to keep DI up 24/7 at, say, level 15.

Everything I had turned in at the point of my dismissal I have on disk. None of the stuff you mention...the mob, the key, or the immunity, are on that disk. Further, the items hidden in the room beyond that door don't even load into that room in the version I have.

The opal wand was one of those things that was to be hidden in the special containers that were to be only visible to members of the Tower (those who completed the quest) who had detect magic up. The same goes for a lot of the other items that are now on mobs or doubled up in hidden containers (in my version there is no room where there are two things hidden, which sort of underlines the fact that there are unused hidden containers already available).

I'm not pissed off at Zulg or whoever finished the area up. It's been said before that the imms had no way of knowing what the vision for the finished product was in its entirety. I'm just saying that you might have taken steps that were unnecessary given the other opportunities already present within the Tower.

I AM pissed off that my lake rewrite was never put in even after the previously discussed uber-flail was adjusted (Grumorum once made fun of me because I put in a flail that was better than any other flail in the game and it was on an easy-to-kill mob, I maintain there must've been a typo). That rewrite which I did in three days time could've spiced up that drab area quite nicely.

1) The High Tower, as it stood, took some serious revision before it went live. (Nearly all areas do.) One particular concern were the dozens of things in it (including some preps which were incredibly potent) that were either careless errors or deliberate "Easter Eggs" which only the author or an informed other could take advantage of.

Whether or not you're still on staff, the area review team is obligated to fix balance issues that they see.

I AM pissed off that my lake rewrite was never put in... That rewrite which I did in three days time could've spiced up that drab area quite nicely.

2) If you are no longer on the staff, your area's chance of going in is directly related to the chance that someone will adopt it and do the finishing work. In this case, I believe the consensus was that the area did look like about three days were spent on it, and we could wait for someone to do a more thorough job.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com