As of late a change was brought about to change the amount of health regained by an orc when consuming elf blood.

Previously sipping and drinking elf blood resulted in the same amount of health gained by the orc in question. After the change, drink results in a larger health gain than sipping (in proportion to the amount of blood consumed by drink vs sip).

On one hand I approve of this change, as it makes the game operate in a more logical manner.

On the other hand I must object to the change in the name of balance. First I must say that I have experienced the power of being able to flee/spam sip or spinebreak/spam sip, and it was quite wonderful.

At first glance one might say that it was overpowered, which would support the recent change which greatly reduced the amount healed by sipping.

If you really think about it though, it really couldn't have been TOO overpowered because it is only availible to orcs, and who was the last orc you knew of dying of age death? Making it to 300 hours played even (Daka I bet has done this, but thats completely besides the point when compared to any other orc I've ever known).

The real fact of the matter is that orcs get raped... hard. Is it really necessary to make life any more difficult?

YES I am playing an orc again right now, so my view is biased, but before the change I actually felt like I was able to maintain a 1:1 ratio if I played well and picked my fights. It still involved a LOT of fleeing and sipping and quafing. Even still, there were LOTS of fights I had to just plain run from, even at low level.

The change making sip all but useless (I'm getting perhaps half a percent per sip?) has completely demoralized(ironic) me as a player about playing my orc at all. Sipping elf blood was pretty much the only thing that kept me from having the feeling like I did not stand a chance against ANYONE.

Why? Because drinking blood from those skins is completely unreasonable. You'd have to carry around 100+ pounds of blood, and either keep your main inventory jammed full or constantly be accessing a bag to get a new one in order to have a shot of being as survivable as you could have been before the change (which was not astronimically survivable)

Suggestion: Change it back, or just increase the amount of blood in the bloody skins and black oily wineskin DRAMATICALLY ( X7 if I remember correct was the amount that sip heal was dropped).

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for your time. Feedback on either side of the debate is highly encouraged.

So no more input from immortals?

Hopefully some input with indications of if it seems reasonable in increase the capacity of bloody skins and oily wineskins?

If it is thought to be completely unresonable for reasons X Y and Z I'd much rather just hear that and move on to playing a non-orc, rather than sitting around unsure if anything will be done.

>Hopefully some input with indications of if it seems
>reasonable in increase the capacity of bloody skins and oily
>wineskins?

Probably at some point I'll take a look at how it sits right now and make adjustments as I see necessary, if Zulghinlour hasn't already by that point. I don't know when that would occur.

I took a quick look through the old comments/posts about when standardization happened, but don't have all the pieces put together to see the full picture of how/why. So yeah...Daev or I will poke at it at some point.

I very much so appreciate your responses.

cheers

What are the items in question? I'll take a look at my notes, see if I can come up with an answer.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

*** Email me your testimonials or two-line blurbs. Help our marketing efforts! ***

Most specifically, the orc bloody skins made via exsanguinate skin. Secondly, the random items in game of a similar nature.

Orc bloody skins (as near as I can tell) actually increased in capacity. My old items table has them with a capacity of 10; they currently have a capacity of 20.

The oily black wineskin has a capacity of 38. That's the only other drink container I'm aware of that has elf blood in it. My notes don't have that changing as a result of standardization.

Hope this helps!

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

*** Email me your testimonials or two-line blurbs. Help our marketing efforts! ***

But it may have had something to do with drink amounts being standardized to the size of the drinker so orcs were taking bigger chunks out of the capacity with each drink instead.

The container size likely didn't change, but the amount an orc drinks out of the container definitely changed.

I believe the names of the two I can think of are:
"Bloody Skin"
"Black Oily Wineskin"

or it may have been
"Oily Black Wineskin"

I can't remember exactly.

Once again... my thanks for your consideration.

Also there may be other NPC drop elf blood containers I don't know about.
/shrug

It's better than it was, but I'm not convinced this is the right set of numbers.

Once again I'd like to thank everyone's sincere responses. Lets keep this thing going.

As far as I see it (perhaps I'm a bit biased as a passionate orc player) Orcs are publicly known as a class that is in need of work so it really makes me happy to see this kind of community input.

Perhaps someday soon we'll see Zulg's Corner- Orcs?

Thanks again keep up the comments/opinions.

I'll call ####. Please show me the mail/post where this is and I'll retract, but I have NEVER, EVER seen anyone report this.

How anyone can say that if I drink 3 times, and get 200 hp in healing, but if I sip 20 times I can get 1300hp in healing is not a bug needs a kick in the ass.

n/t

Or I was not clear. I reported the nerfing from 5-6 on bloody and 20 on oily to 3 as a bug in 2006 and was told it was as design. I didn't report the sip thing because I thought it was a fix. It makes a certain amount of sense to me (you only need so much blood to heal, and the rest is wasted) but obviously not to you.

If I report that orcs suck as a bug, will you fix that? :P That is a joke, in case it isn't clear.

>I didn't report the sip thing because I thought it was a fix. It makes a certain amount of sense to me (you only need so much blood to heal, and the rest is wasted) but obviously not to you.

Well, it makes no sense to me gameplay-wise that you should use a specific command for the skins to be more powerful. Not to mention that this was an undocumented "feature". It should have been clear to you, once you realised that sip was better than drink, that it wasn't by design or if it was, it was a crappy design.

I think it all probably hails from the fact that in times prior to standardization, sip and drink were pretty much the same thing. I do recall the complaints about orcs getting nerfed by the standardization and Imms stating that it was by design due to the volume/weight standardization. I can understand you accepting it as fix as so many things changed and Imms were not willing to adjust the healing rates of drink to compensate with the nerf caused by standardization. I think the healing rates should have been checked with the introduction of sip to balance out the nerf back then, thus fixing the bug as well.

I think I'd feel more sympathetic if this wasn't pretty obviously a bug that no one was mentioning.

Does sipping from water skin help conserve water and quench your thirst at least a little? That'd be neat if you were exploring and really needed to stretch out the last bit of water left in a canteen.

Think of it like a token system.


Having X is you fully quenched.

Having Y is where you're dying of thirst.

Drinking adds Z tokens, sipping adds B.

At least that's how I think it works.
It knocks your token amount a less amount up than drink, but enough to extend it a bit longer.

As I said in my original post, I understand the fact that the way it works now makes much more sense.

I perhaps didn't word myself correctly. I did not mean for my post to be a plead for sympathy, nor for it to ignore the fact that the sip action was a bug.

The real purpose was to point out the fact that using sip on elf blood was the only reasonable method (at least in my rather newbish and ignorant opinion) for an orc to maintain a shot at being competitive.

I would at least appreciate some more feedback on people's thoughts of whether it would be thought to be balanced if elf blood containers were increased in capacity by the same ratio that the sip effect heal was reduced.

I truely don't think orcs were made overly powerful by it. Even relative powerhouse orcs such as Pleebert lived reasonably short lives.

My thanks in advance for your well thought out responses and suggestions.

You should note that the portion of orc playerbase that was abusing the bug isn't going to shine as much as it used to, which skews your previous views of the orc game balance. Some increase in the sip/drink power might be a good idea to compensate the loss of power. Personally, I wasn't aware of this bug, using drink, and thought that the exanguinate skins were somewhat underpowered (lots of gathering and timer-waiting for a relatively low benefit).

It seems to be that back when I played my orc, you could drink a lot more from the skins. I never knew about the sip bug, so I always used straight up drink.

I have a feeling that during item standardization that these contains got nerfed unintentionally, and now with the sip 'bug' fixed, you'll see orcs suffer quite a bit.

>It seems to be that back when I played my orc, you could
>drink a lot more from the skins. I never knew about the sip
>bug, so I always used straight up drink.
>
>I have a feeling that during item standardization that these
>contains got nerfed unintentionally, and now with the sip
>'bug' fixed, you'll see orcs suffer quite a bit.



Although I agree that it was the right thing to do, fixing the bug. However I completely agree with this poster.

I understand that the orc class balancing issue is quite a complex one that may involve an entire revamp in the future, but I believe that making the elf blood containers carry much much more blood so that drink can be used effectively would at the very least be a reasonable temporary balance tweak that would have very little potential to be abusable to the point where orcs would be overpowered.

Once again, my thanks for all opinions expressed, and I look forward to hearing more people's views on the topic and perhaps some immortal input. This would help me see the game developers'/administrators' side of the topic.

Do you feel that them having 800hp heal skins was overpowered? Did while you were watching them fight feel that this made Orcs a powerhouse?

As someone who knows the mechanics of Orcs and I assume has played one post adaptations, what are your thoughts on what can be done to help them. I'd like some input from you because I've never seen your input on Orcs, having played them straight for the last 3 years. I'm glad to have Grobbak helping us a lot more but you seem to lack caring on this particular class in general.

From my perspective it did not help Orcs become unbeatable, moreso it made them stick around longer to die than having to flee/quaff against everything they fight.

What it really comes down to is, as someone who has played orcs post-adaptations and who didn't know about the sip bug, I obviously don't think they're unplayable without it.

Curiosity, since I posted on the older thread on Grobbak's board, and that's died....as I mentioned, I played without ever realizing sip as well, but my memory tends to say skins used to be better.

I was thinking it was when Kastellyn did the whole item standardization, that it seemed like the amount of blood each skin held went down. Tried looking at assorted logs, and I think I'm right, though it might have been 5ish years ago :P

If that's the case, wouldn't that have been a pure downgrade caused as a sideeffect of something else? It seemed in Straklaw's day, skins were at least useful, compared to having to spend more commands getting them out of sacks and dropping the empties, than I get to drink out of them as 5lb heal potions.

I didn't know about the sip bug. I wish I had, because then I'd have been better off with my couple Orc experimentations.

I won some fights. I lost some fights. I didn't feel like I could stand up to any of the powerhouse characters. So in that respect, I felt they were lacking. But the characters I could fight, I could take down rather easily.

Orcs are on par with thieves as far as tanking ability goes, but they have a whole lot more offensive power. An Orc with a good hitroll and damroll can pump out some good damage. And they make excellent lackies (a la Scion or anyone who will group with them).



The only thing I'd like to see, is to change up exsanguinate a little bit. Allow Orcs to set exsanguinate to one type of their choosing: Offense, Defense, Heal, Protective, Utility. And have that timer last a similar length to Druid herbs. They would only get one full skin per timer. Ideally, they should be able to maintain whatever type they've picked for the entire duration of the exsanguinate timer. But each individual drink would last maybe 8-12 hours. So they'd have to keep drinking from the skin periodically.

Offense: Would add damage roll when they drink from a skin. I'd guess in the vacinity of +10 damage.

Defense: Would add a minor strength and dexterity timer (+2str/dex). Would also increase parry slightly (unsure what a good amount to this would be--but less than ward of blades or maybe near equal to it).

Heal: They would get one healing skin for the entire duration. There should be about 20 full drinks in one healing skin. Each drink gives one heal (100hps). So this gives Orcs the ability to heal 2000hps in about 120 game hours.

Protective: One drink would give them the equivalent to the aura spell. This could give Orcs the potential to have protection from good, aura, stone skin. This would make them last longer in a fight, instead of absorbing tons of damage all at once. It would also give them some class damage reduction, so they could explore, gather equipment, preps, etc. on their own.

Utility: This would give a boost to many of their utility skills. I could see it actually increasing the percentages of all their skills (by 5% maybe) and also providing a bonus to their adaptation skills.



What do you think?

I'm not clear on how this works, relative to current exsanguinate which creates a healing skin that you can potentially stockpile. I mean, do I make all 5 of these and then I can crack them out for the same fight? I don't understand how it's supposed to work from this description.

You get one (maybe two?) skin(s) that has a duration of rougly 120 in game hours right from the start of getting the skill exsanguinate (each skin would crumble after the duration, and you go get yourself a new one). You would only be able to have one (maybe two?) affect at a time, because you can only exsanguinate one (maybe two) skin(s) at a time. There would be roughly 6-12 drinks per skin, which scales with the level of the mob. Each drink would scale duration based on level (and possibly exsanguinate skill percentage). Maybe starting out at like 5 hours, and scaling up to 10 hours. That way there are enough uses in each skin that you could use it in PK or to kill a tougher mob. But you wouldn't be able to drink it so consistently that you could have it up the entire time for leveling (or maybe you could, depending on your thoughts of balance).

You could go for a moderate boost in what the affects of the skin does if you opt to go the route of being able to maintain whichever affect the entire 120 hour duration. Or you could go for a stronger boost in the desired affect and not necessarily be able to have that particular affect up the entire 120 hour duration (so you'd need to use it situationally).

There could also be edges that affect the duration of the skin (more or less hours).

Ideally, the highest level Orcs could have one of the desired affects up almost the entire time, while a low-level Orc with exsanguinate would most definitely have to use his skin situationally.

I added that Orcs should have two simply for the fact that high level druids can have up to 5 sets of herbs. And that's sort of what I'm going off of here. Maybe make it so low-level Orcs can only have one. But when you reach a certain level, you can have two.

First, I don't really appreciate being called a cheater. I have always played in good faith. I, being the first (AFAIK) person to use sip did not consider it a bug. Since I complained about it in 2005, 2006, and 2007, I was under the mistaken impression that someone listened to me.

My reasoning was that since pre-standardization, there was a 20 drink wineskin gettable as often as an area repops, and with sip, every skin is a 20 sip skin, it was really just a return to the way it was, pre-nerf.

Second, I made no attempt to hide what I was doing. I told other orcs IC about it. If it was, in fact, a bug, I would have expected someone to mention it to me.

Third, I know for a fact that sipping did not always work, as I remember trying it just after standardization came in, and again after I complained that alcohol is drank at a much slower rate than elf blood.

Fourth, I know I shouldn't even have made this post, because I'm angry and whatnot, but it this, "I think I'd feel more sympathetic if this wasn't pretty obviously a bug that no one was mentioning." has been festering since I read it. Now that I've vented I can let it go.

Fifth, I would like to know what orc you played so that I can study the build and any logs that might exist to know where you are doing things so much differently than I. I think I played a pretty strong orc, but I find them woefully lacking in the hero range vs pretty anyone. This is a sincere request.