Ever thought of putting up some houses for sale within some of the major cities? A place to store things, guarded by a hefty mercenary or two? With a locked door needing a skilled lockpick to get through?

Or maybe for high ranking members of the cabals. Put them past the inner guardian and guarded by a bit tougher guard/guards. Again needing a skilled lock pick to get in. Might add some extra need of a thief/lockpicker when raiding to get some goodies.

You could also just make the rooms even harder to get into etc. and make it so you can't store limited items there to avoid hoarding.

I think the number of low/mid rank character walking around with nasty hero suits is evidence that heroes (willingly or otherwise) are getting killed and looted. They may be less willing to take risks at their cabal / on eastern when they see 2-3 lowbies in the area, but that's never going to change. Most decked heroes do put their suits on the line quite a bit, they're just good enough to win most of the time.

The way CFs equipment/inventory system is designed (especially after weight changes), it's pretty easy to have everything you need on you at any given time. Allowing an elf warrior to buy a locker/storeroom where he can store preps, gold, and 2 swords for every vuln without eating the weight-dex-dodge loss is just dumb.

There's always cabals to leave spare eq in. Even if you beef up the guards to cabals/houses/lockers/whatever, if they're so strong a solid hero cant kill them fairly easily, they're too strong.

Like Valg said, unless you're basically hording an item for a specific prog, there's generally an alternative. There's lots of wrath swords, for example, or multiple healing prog items. Between spamming locate, trading, PKing, and having friends, getting just about any item (even some highly limited stuff) shouldn't take 400-500 hours. And if you can't get it, unless you're a buff OP Anti-Paladin or something, you can probably get by without Hell/ST/Yzekon eq for a few more hours.

In the end, I think most people would agree that the leet gear is "circulating" pretty well. When it's not, most combos can be played very very effectively with "good but not uber/proggy" equipment almost as well.

Or play a shapeshifter. You should be able to snag 500 hp worth of eq almost any time, regardless of race/align.

>I think the number of low/mid rank character walking around
>with nasty hero suits is evidence that heroes (willingly or
>otherwise) are getting killed and looted.

Hero gear != excellent gear.
There are many newbies walking in limited sets.
There are even more newbies walking in midnight dragon (which should zap newbies imho).
But you don't see many newbies wearing strange bracers.

>The way CFs equipment/inventory system is designed (especially
>after weight changes), it's pretty easy to have everything
>you need on you at any given time.

Straightforward lie.
Preps alone may burden your character rather quickly.

>Allowing an elf warrior to
>buy a locker/storeroom where he can store preps, gold, and 2
>swords for every vuln without eating the weight-dex-dodge loss
>is just dumb.

Actually, the original proposal was to store only non-limited items. Not that I support the idea of storehouses anyway.

>Like Valg said, unless you're basically hording an item for a
>specific prog, there's generally an alternative. There's lots
>of wrath swords, for example,

That's probably the only example. Wrath swords grow on trees.

Try to find good poison, water, cold swords. (25+ avr).

>or multiple healing prog items.

Not so many of them are useful either.
Those which are really useful are highly limited.

>Between spamming locate, trading, PKing,
>and having friends, getting just about any item (even some
>highly limited stuff) shouldn't take 400-500 hours.

It may take even longer.
Many good items have reduced limits now.
And if the item you want is highly limited, let us say limit 2 or less (many falls into this category), you probably will have it once in your character life or not at all if it is stored on some powerful character who isn't going to put himself into risk of losing it.

>In the end, I think most people would agree that the leet gear
>is "circulating" pretty well.

No, it doesn't. How well circulatate the strange bracers for example?

>When it's not, most combos can
>be played very very effectively with "good but not
>uber/proggy" equipment almost as well.

You can also play effectively while almost naked (if you are a bard or an invoker) but it's dodging the point.

>Or play a shapeshifter. You should be able to snag 500 hp
>worth of eq almost any time, regardless of race/align.

Or a shapeshifter.

>>I think the number of low/mid rank character walking around
>>with nasty hero suits is evidence that heroes (willingly or
>>otherwise) are getting killed and looted.
>
>Hero gear != excellent gear.
>There are many newbies walking in limited sets.
>There are even more newbies walking in midnight dragon (which
>should zap newbies imho).
>But you don't see many newbies wearing strange bracers.

Most low/mid ranks don't have stranger bracers, but they certainly
have very highly limited eq. It isn't uncommon to see highly limited
weapons and armor on someone 15/20+. Strange bracers are hard
to find on most heroes, and rightly so, but I don't have enough fingers
and toes to count the number of bal'talons I've seen on sub 40 paladins.

I don't know if you're not counting looting and having #### given to you
by guild/cabal mates, but I've run into some gear and weapons that
are limited (as highly limited as 2-3) with chars as low as 20. Sometimes
people give it to me. Sometimes I camp fort with my orc and l00t ur br3d.
Point is, the gear is available.

>>The way CFs equipment/inventory system is designed
>(especially
>>after weight changes), it's pretty easy to have everything
>>you need on you at any given time.
>
>Straightforward lie.
>Preps alone may burden your character rather quickly.
>

You don't need 15 of everything. Get a bracelet of charms or a
girdle of endless space or a big bag and put in a few potions
for each thing. You can get weightless boats and other misc.
light items. What else do you NEED that many of? I've seen some
pretty serious prep bags weigh in under 30-50lbs, which I consider
acceptable.

Weight has never been a problem for me, even with chars who rely on dodge.
A fighter doesn't need more than 5-6 kinds of preps, and only needs to
carry 2-3 at a time. If you feel you need to carry 30 fly potions, then
you're going to have carry weight problems, yeah.

Almost any prep can be had at 1lb/ea, including a boat. Food can be light,
especially if you get a pouch of nourishment (not hard).

Side note: having a locker/store room wouldn't fix the fact that whoring
preps means carrying ####. You're either going to your stash or the
store/prep spawn location.

>>Allowing an elf warrior to
>>buy a locker/storeroom where he can store preps, gold, and 2
>>swords for every vuln without eating the weight-dex-dodge
>loss
>>is just dumb.
>
>Actually, the original proposal was to store only non-limited
>items. Not that I support the idea of storehouses anyway.

I was replying to everyone on the subject at once. I didn't
quote you. That said, even storing non-lim gear in some static
container is stupid.

>>Like Valg said, unless you're basically hording an item for
>a
>>specific prog, there's generally an alternative. There's
>lots
>>of wrath swords, for example,
>
>That's probably the only example. Wrath swords grow on trees.
>
>Try to find good poison, water, cold swords. (25+ avr).

Excluding any such criteria to swords alone is going to yield
very little, but if you're looking for poison weapons in general
or gold weapons in general, then yeah, there's enough.

I can think of 4-5 poison weapons gettable sub 20. I can think of
at least one water and 2-3 cold.


(By gettable I mean via killing the mob, disarming it, buying, etc).

>>or multiple healing prog items.

Healing prog items are rare for a reason. I never suggested you
could go kill a mob for them at level 20 any ol day. Camp a cabal
and loot a hero.

>Not so many of them are useful either.
>Those which are really useful are highly limited.

Loot people. It's fun(ny).

>>Between spamming locate, trading, PKing,
>>and having friends, getting just about any item (even some
>>highly limited stuff) shouldn't take 400-500 hours.
>
>It may take even longer.
>Many good items have reduced limits now.
>And if the item you want is highly limited, let us say limit 2
>or less (many falls into this category), you probably will
>have it once in your character life or not at all if it is
>stored on some powerful character who isn't going to put
>himself into risk of losing it.
>
>>In the end, I think most people would agree that the leet
>gear
>>is "circulating" pretty well.
>
>No, it doesn't. How well circulatate the strange bracers for
>example?

The fact that you only use this one example makes me feel
you're wrong. Strange ubers are ####ing h4x and yeah, they're
either on one char who isn't dying or they're in but you
aren't getting them / cant get them.

If you're playing a build good enough to get and keep strange
bracers, you'll probably wind up having them.

>>When it's not, most combos can
>>be played very very effectively with "good but not
>>uber/proggy" equipment almost as well.
>

Yes it is. So? If you can't get strange bracers, play something
that doesn't need them because the limits probably aren't changing
any time soon. May I suggest a muter perma buddy?


Either the limits stay the same and the gear stays as good, or the
limits go up and the edge gained from the gear goes down. The way it is
more now is a little more interesting. Having to work hard to kill
AwesomeHero for his bracers, or having to type fast enough to loot them,
is more fun than having 15 of them around.

I don't agree with storage areas and I also in general believe high end gear is definately too good. Too good as in, there comes a point where you just cannot ever compete solo against people with certain gear and win, no matter how good your tactics are, without unique gear of your own. A good example is a stoneform/abs invoker. They may as well be rolling around in god mode if you aren't an assassin because even with maxed saves its sorta impossible to kill someone whose hitting you for demos when you're scratching them.

And I know how they get that gear, mainly by being an in power cabal and getting a group to help them get it - something that much of the rest of the game won't be able to do without cheating. Not to mention the knowledge of how to get said items is often transmitted by less than stelar means - including knowledge of who has it in game so they can go kill that person. So basically it screws over honest people who are underdogs much of the time, not to mention newbies.

Regardless, your point about people dying is somewhat silly. My typical char dies in pk like 5 to 10 times in their entire life - and thats without defiance, wooden hummingbird pendants, rings of regen, etc. That's also including stupid lowbie bash deaths and such. At hero its likely I might die once or twice - if ever. And I'm not even in the top 10% of conservative powergamers - guys like Nepenthe, Lightmage, Cerunnir and Mekantos might potentially never die at hero. Good luck looting them.

>I don't agree with storage areas and I also in general
>believe high end gear is definately too good. Too good as in,
>there comes a point where you just cannot ever compete solo
>against people with certain gear and win, no matter how good
>your tactics are, without unique gear of your own. A good
>example is a stoneform/abs invoker. They may as well be
>rolling around in god mode if you aren't an assassin because
>even with maxed saves its sorta impossible to kill someone
>whose hitting you for demos when you're scratching them.

Agreed.

>And I know how they get that gear, mainly by being an in power
>cabal and getting a group to help them get it - something that
>much of the rest of the game won't be able to do without
>cheating. Not to mention the knowledge of how to get said
>items is often transmitted by less than stelar means -
>including knowledge of who has it in game so they can go kill
>that person. So basically it screws over honest people who are
>underdogs much of the time, not to mention newbies.

Agreed. I'm just trying to be realistic. A lot of people do get "elite" gear from cabals, cheating, looting, etc. Although none of those are terribly honorable ways, but in a game that rewards players (like you said above) for number crunching and having every single edge possible, that's how people are going to play it.

>Regardless, your point about people dying is somewhat silly.
>My typical char dies in pk like 5 to 10 times in their entire
>life - and thats without defiance, wooden hummingbird
>pendants, rings of regen, etc. That's also including stupid
>lowbie bash deaths and such. At hero its likely I might die
>once or twice - if ever. And I'm not even in the top 10% of
>conservative powergamers - guys like Nepenthe, Lightmage,
>Cerunnir and Mekantos might potentially never die at hero.
>Good luck looting them.

Once an uber strong hero with a phat suit dies, the gear tends to cascade a little more freely as "less uber" people get it. If you only die once or twice at hero, you're up there with the conservative powergames in terms of your ability to stay alive and/or win, because that's considerably fewer deaths than the average hero.

I'll agree that there are 2-3 character at any given moment who are very unlikely to die, and those characters do stash away some 1337 gh33r, but they generally do die every once in a while. Likewise, there are usually quite a few more "good but not as good as " heroes who die every few sessions.

In the end, I still stand by my observation of some pretty nice gear on people who obviously didn't kill the mob.

All that said, I agree that the imms should look into finding ways of adjusting the mechanics so that "power house" combos aren't made even more powerful just by adding a few select items.

My post had nothing to do with eq circulation. I'm too new to even know if thats in good shape or bad. Plus, I'm pretty sure I mentioned not being able to store limited stuff. The idea was meant for junk-semi junk or maybe quest items etc you haven't figured out yet. That way your not walking around all encumbered like I do. I explore all the time, and to say I can carry anything I need at any given time is just silly. I haven't even found most of the stuff I feel I need to carry around, and I'm already over burdened.

And the thief comment was just because I like the idea of thieves having something cool to break into. Even if it is just for fun and see what junk someone has stored up.

I think the last time I suggested this was to make regearing quicker. Basically, let players store non-limited items, but restrict the storage somehow. Total cost of items, total weight, item count, etc. Maybe charge a recurring cost per item based on item value? Something like that. Then a player could "bank" a set of midnight dragon gear + skull rings + brass collars + charred bracers. When he dies, bam, he's instantly regeared, assuming I took the time pre-death to gather all that stuff.

This is one of those things that makes me wonder if level restrictions wouldn't be such an evil thing.

If an item had a min. level requirement field that was optional for the builder, certain shops could provide decent equipment for sale that's better than anything being sold now.

Having a few shops that sell a partial suit of solid gear (on par with re-equip gear) would be great, except for the fact that any mid rank or hero could easily buy his lowbie friend an entire suit.

I know the imms have shot down the idea of a level req. before, but I am glad to see the quality of merchant sold gear going up a little bit.

This gets suggested a fair bit, but I've never been fond of it. Specifically, no matter how you do it, it's merely a way to increase the amount of stuff a character can have 'on their person', which isn't necessarily a goal that helps gameplay.

Personally, I think characters these days are pretty fat and happy, mostly due to the revision of areas such that most areas have decent items now. Even if each Special Sword of Shwacking is limited to 2, if there is a slightly different SSoS in each of ten areas, there's 20 of them, and that keeps a lot of people fat and happy. I think gameplay would benefit from a little more resource competition, not less-- the oft-advertised point that if you want that shiny sword, you might have to take it from another player.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Even if each Special Sword of
>Shwacking is limited to 2, if there is a slightly different
>SSoS in each of ten areas, there's 20 of them, and that keeps
>a lot of people fat and happy. I think gameplay would benefit
>from a little more resource competition, not less-- the
>oft-advertised point that if you want that shiny sword, you
>might have to take it from another player.

Problem with low limits is that players afraid to risk, because they know that they probably won't get a chance touch that Special Sword of Shwacking again for another 400-500 hours.
While there can be other good replacements, usually they aren't the same and fit less for a specific character. Or that player hasn't explored ST/Yzekon/Hell/Whatever and doesn't know it exists or doesn't have power to walk there.

It's kind of paradox. Many hero players are stacked and rarely die, yet still they often don't have the items they really are looking for.

Many hero players are stacked and rarely die, yet still they often don't have the items they really are looking for.

This is a touchy point with me. Over my previous tenure with CF, I had a chance to look at the worn/carried gear of (hundreds of) 'hero players'. In a majority of instances, not only are all the slots filled with very shiny/glowing/humming/rare gear, but their inventory is as well. This is not always the case, heroes die, but even the raiding deaths are not too traumatic as there are (almost) always cabal members waiting to help regear, or the cabal pit. Generally, the uncaballed folks do not have a high incidence of pk death (unless they are helping to raid), so their items are often retireved from their corpse.

While 'hero players' may not have everything they want, they have a lot, and going to get new/better gear is what we are about here. Think of it as an incentive to go outside of your nice safe hideout.






A whole new day, a whole new set of possibilities. - MacGyver

>While 'hero players' may not have everything they want, they
>have a lot, and going to get new/better gear is what we are
>about here. Think of it as an incentive to go outside of your
>nice safe hideout.

In truth, the best way to gather a nice set is playing conservatively. So, while many heroes are stacked, you don't see too many actions between them, hero range is skewed towards fair weather players. You can see several powerhouses who don't really fight each other, instead they login when they don't have strong opposition and try to stomp everybody else in their range. If one side have advantage, other side simply logoffs.
How often you see raids where both sides have some strength?

Cabal members and the cabal pit may maintain good set for a player, but not the excellent one. And we also have some players who likes to follow heroes at level 11. IDEA: Make it possible to attack players below level 20 for everyone in areas adjusted to cabals: promisy forest, Imperial lands, Ostalagiah ruins, misty mountains. Well, probably not very serious idea, but you've got the point.

One remark: some races have less issues with eq because of race-only gear. Often they have no real competition for it, so regear is easier for them.
Drows, fire giants for example, to lesser extent felars and dwarves/duergars.

While 'hero players' may not have everything they want, they have a lot, and going to get new/better gear is what we are about here. Think of it as an incentive to go outside of your nice safe hideout.


This is precisely where a big issue happens to be. You can't go get those items because they are always hoarded by conservative players. I'd rather have "great gear" be a lot easier to get, and the game a lot more exciting, than the way it is now where people are afraid (and let's be honest...they have a right to be) of losing it all and taking a damn long time to get it back. Quite possibly, they never will. And it's not for lack of trying, it's simply due to the denial of the possibility of re-claiming things when A) You don't know who has them, B) They are highly limited, and C) They are hoarded.


And Dwoggurd has a very good point about powerful sides only competing when the other side isn't around, or is weaker. It's a shame that that's the way it is, but I understand why people play that way (even if I don't agree with it in the slightest and think it's pussified to the max). Death and eq-loss are harsh, yeah. Maybe a bit too much here.

>This is precisely where a big issue happens to be. You
>can't go get those items because they are always
>hoarded by conservative players.

I'm not sure this is entirely true, depending on what items you're talking about. I won't go into details about who has what, but suffice it to say that there are some characters out there I wouldn't term "highly conservative" who are walking around with some wacked out stuff. Igbah comes to mind. The "really nice" goodie stuff is, for the most part, concentrated on three separate paladins, but I'm not in a position to comment on how conservative or non-conservative they are.

>I'd rather have "great gear"
>be a lot easier to get, and the game a lot more exciting, than
>the way it is now where people are afraid

If everybody had great gear then it would by definition not be "great" anymore. It would be "average".

My main obstacle to acquiring this gear is that 1) the people who have it are usually super-hard to kill, partly because the gear, but also because they're usually skilled players, and 2) getting the gear off the mob usually takes a good bit of cooperation among PCs, and I hate to beg other players to help me gather gear.

The few "really nice" items you can get solo are, understandably, maxed out around 99% of the time. Occasionally I luck out and obtain one, but usually it only happens once or twice in a character's lifetime.

'My main obstacle to acquiring this gear is that 1) the people who have it are usually super-hard to kill, partly because the gear, but also because they're usually skilled players, and 2) getting the gear off the mob usually takes a good bit of cooperation among PCs, and I hate to beg other players to help me gather gear.'

If 2 was not true, I'd have more incentive to venture outside of levelling areas, cities and cabal HQ's and look for the gear myself. Such as it is, the mobs are either unkillable by a solo player or require such an investment of time to do so that the area will re-pop undoing all of your hard work and in some cases quite possibly killing you.

It's substantially easier to gun for even the most skilled player solo than to bother with allies who, in my experience, the vast majority of the time are going to be busy with their own #### and I don't feel like waiting for half of my session for them to get bored of chasing some guy that's out of my PK and that they are too slow to catch even when I scout for and find the guy, and come help me get ONE piece of gear, or worse, an expendable prep. This is just one example.

The rare times I would ask this (help and/or info from other players regarding gear) they are either completely ignorant of it or would get construed as Fort-styled handouts even if I eloquently stated it differently. I've had ex-Scion leaders tell me they would have 'shown me so much stuff if I stuck around longer' for instance, only to know that there was no reason for their character to help my mediocre dude even if I gave them some of my paltry scraps from slayings of lesser skilled players or followed them around.

Trying to do so solo is more often than not an exercise in either getting killed, not knowing the area, and many times when questions are asked the entire cabal is either ignorant and/or busy.

Summary: You're better off trying to be an assassinate monkey than trying to explore the game yourself for gear that isn't possible to get and might not be present. This may or may not be a bad thing.