What potential change or addition, if any, would make the sub-hero levels of the game more interesting to you? Interesting in this case being defined as: you'd be more interested in PKing/exploring/RPing/etc. in them (vs. powering through them) than today.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I don't know that it'd be quite so feasible in practice, but the idea of having weapons/armor that are "top-end" items for their appropriate range, and that lower level characters can get themselves.

Right now, any character I have, I'm always on the lookout for hero-range gear that I can scavenge/steal/beg/bribe for. Even with the associated penalties (especially with armors), it's still more worth it to do that.

My thoughts were if say 90% of the weapons a level 20 person can get are avg 20, maybe there's some limited weapons that are avg 22 that my random level 20 guy can get by himself, and are the "elite" weapons of his range.

Unfortunately, I tend to think that instead of the lowbies getting them, random hero guy who can't find any "standard" avg 22 weapons would just go pick that up easily instead of the lowbies getting it. Unless you could do something along the lines of the marble gear (which zaps you past a certain level), or leather travelling boots (which are good for the lowbie, but less good as you get higher level).

Anyways, practical problems and functionality aside, that's one of the reasons I always power up to hero, because I'm always thinking "well, if I could just go get THAT piece of gear, I'd do better". If there's lowbie-associated "elite" gear, maybe I'll level up to kill the mob and get that better gear, or maybe I'll try to get that elite lowbie gear instead!

Would be nice if you gained 1/3rd con each time you level up (but not over your trained con.. so you cant ignore training con and use it for hps). Would make it more appealing to play around at lower ranks.

Edit: Might also make people rage delete early less.

Yeah, I've been trying for a while now to come up with some version of "con loss forgiveness" that doesn't defeat the point of con loss, is fair to people with play styles unlike mine, and that I can sell the other IMPs on. :)

I agree that one reason to power level for some players is to get all their HP gaining out of the way without having to #### around with con gear or training con. There might be other ways to solve that problem (e.g., get rid of train hp) but I think most of them would bring people with torches and pitchforks to my house.

And Gnome shifters by the hundreds would come and burn your house down. You would need to then roll a villager.

I understand the concept of "You gotta have something to lose" in order to make losing mean something.

I personally think exp penalties and con loss are redundant and overly harsh in a game wherein death already means loss of shinies.

And why age death? Gear recycling? Seriously, the only think that does is recycle roles or force lame stretches of the imagination after a 100,000 takes on Baer's religion.

It's a glaring negative on CF's front page too.

Death has consequences! What can that possibly mean but, UNfun?

Re-equiping was a big enough pain, grinding out of a hole that's often deeper than just redoing a level, is worse, especially if you've been struggling to get that one cool skill/song/sup/spell/shape/legacy. Oh and there is the additional penalty that as you age you won't be able to replace stats lost to the process, you'll regen slower, and be more suseptable to a sup that will age you (potentially) AND take another 1/3 con if you go down.

Someone help me understand the possitive gained from all these negatives?

The Pro

Losing shinies is a penalty to failing in combat, but not a hard-coded one. Mobs do not (generally) take your equipment after death. Players can (and usually do, to varying extents), if they choose to. I don't see it as a death penalty, per se, though leaving gear on your corpse is certainly a potential drawback.

As you know, con loss happens with any death. It's part risk/reward, and part mechanism to permanently kill off characters through violent combat. If you con-die, this yields an eventual reward to your foes: your utter elimination. It's important, since otherwise killing someone just results in their continual resurrection. Eventually, killing someone should mean something, otherwise it's just another frag.

Experience loss happens with mob deaths. I attribute this to an increased risk for "easier" targets (ie, not PC controlled). Easier might be the wrong term, so let's call them "more predictable". You know that every time you fight X, it's going to follow a certain set of behaviors, plus or minus some RNG action. You can find X in location Y every time, it's going to use skills/spells A, B, and C throughout combat, and it will/will not chase you down if you have to break off and rest. Experience penalties also provides a risk/reward mechanism that ties into a common mob-related activity: ranking. High risk/high reward areas can result in a satisfying hour or two of serious experience gain at the risk of an experience setback if things go wrong.

Age death is important from a character cycling standpoint. Think particularly of cabal leadership, tattooed religious followers, etc. Age death forces turnover of even the most invincible characters, and allows different players the chance to achieve. If I'm not mistaken, it also trails far behind con deaths and deletions in terms of ways a character makes his grand exit.

So while "death has consequences" may, on the surface, appear to be unfun (especially when you're presently experiencing said consequences), I'd argue that they actually combine to increase the overall "fun" of the game.

I've always maintained that CF has both a well-balanced PVP system and an exceptionally well-tuned risk/reward system that applies to a variety of play styles. Take a hard look at other games you've played, particularly ones that you've gotten bored with and uninstalled. What was missing?

I don't think most people mind the "When your con drops to 3, you die forever" consequence of death. The bummer is that while you're alive, con is important enough to protect from a game mechanics standpoint that most people aren't interested in risking theirs, even when preservation isn't their primary concern.

HP regeneration and vulnerability to rot are two reasons to avoid letting your con get low, as well as HP gains if you're below 51. So now, even though I don't really care about con dying (eventually), I have to save my trains for con because I want to regenerate at a reasonable rate and I find the idea of gathering and carrying with me +20 con worth of ####ty equipment simply too lame to deal with. At this point, the penalty for dying goes way beyond being another tally-mark closer to losing my character forever by the time I'm getting bored anyway.

I like the principle that if I PK you enough, you go away for good. Personally, I don't even mind the fact that dying more than someone else gives me a permanent mechanical penalty (or that being conservative gives me an edge), though some people probably think that sucks. I suppose some people might prefer that the attribute used to count down to perma-death wasn't an attribute that has that much impact on other aspects of the game.

>I suppose some people might prefer
>that the attribute used to count down to perma-death wasn't an
>attribute that has that much impact on other aspects of the
>game.

I've absolutely felt this way for a while. Perma-death via PK is utterly, utterly crucial to CF's goodness for me, but I don't feel that the gameplay effects of low con are very fun, or reward the kind of play that I think represents CF at its best.

>HP regeneration and vulnerability to rot are two reasons to
>avoid letting your con get low

While I agree these are valid concerns, I'm not sure there's as big of a deal as you might think.

Wise Recovery largely takes care of hp regen.

Taking the time to locate and carry a set of "rot gear" largely takes care of the rot vuln.

With a con of ~10 you can usually survive rot using only gear that fits in a sack, as long as you wear it very soon after being rotted.

>gathering and carrying with me +20 con worth of ####ty

Me too, but even with "decent con" you're going to have to carry <i>some</i> stuff in order to survive rot. So having "low con" only means you add a few things to that set.

>Me too, but even with "decent con" you're going to have to
>carry <i>some</i> stuff in order to survive rot. So having
>"low con" only means you add a few things to that set.

Lots of shamans don't use rot, at least not frequently. Historically, I've always made the choice just to not shamans that use rot, because that's more fun than farming up some random goddamned con gear constantly. However, since nobody ever loots a container anymore, it might be almost worthwhile.

Personally, I'd rather carry the con gear than remove my ability to kill said shamans. I can't kill them if I never fight them. In order to not get rotted, I have to never fight them.

Only case where I'd go with the "never fight them" option is if I were playing a class that had pretty much zero chance of *ever* killing a shaman.

>Personally, I'd rather carry the con gear than remove my
>ability to kill said shamans. I can't kill them if I never
>fight them. In order to not get rotted, I have to never fight
>them.

Meh. If I had to waste the time gathering the set once ever, then maybe. Remember, what I said before was based on the experience of losing the sack of con gear every third time I die. This was in the days of more prevalent looting. Now everyone is horrified at the idea of losing anything, so it's less an issue. Also bear in mind that A> I'm not a great PKer to begin with and B>If I'm not dieing as frequently as I kill, then it means I'm not taking on real challenges. Basically anything over a 60% PK ratio means I'm playing too conservatively.

So taken together, high rates of death plus high rates of looting means high rates of replacing con gear. And that is just pure drudgery that outweighs the ability to kill fight few shamans that are going to use rot.

Also I just find fighting shamans to be kind of irritating since they're hard to kill and they leave you incapacitated for long durations, and/or make you spend what to me is lots of gold.

I guess I don't die that often. And, as you point out, when I do, I typically don't lose my sack of con gear. If someone wants something from my container, they usually remove it and drop the container.

Still- my list of con gear is pretty easy to gather.

I don't think it's a big deal, it was just an observation based on the discussion here.

I do find the process of going out and gathering misc. non-limited, light weight +con equipment every once in a while to be "more trouble than it's worth". That said, I tend to delete before my con gets below 10 or so, and usually have a little +con from the gear I actually want to wear.

With regards to many other things I *could* do but don't, I'd rather skip it because it's boring and not fun and have a harder time in some very situational scenarios than bother being prepared for any possible confrontation. I guess that's why I don't play APs.

Kind of like Marcus's idea. I know personally if I hit too many stupid deaths early I delete because of the Con loss I'm going to have to deal with from that point on. Even one Con every 5 levels wouldn't be bad. So people would have a little extra +hp, just means fights last a little longer. Which I see as a good thing anyway.

> There might be other ways to solve that problem (e.g., get rid of
train hp) but I
>think most of them would bring people with torches and
>pitchforks to my house.

As someone pathologically devoted to saving every last practice for possible hp-training, I would actually be in favor of getting rid of train hp.

Basically I'm against any game design that forces me to do annoying things in order to get a competitive advantage. Personally, I don't think games should be about enduring boredom to achieve a payoff. That's what jobs are for.

Alas, in CF you have to do this all the time, especially with melee and mage classes :(

Unless I'm missing something, the main people who would benefit from this are the ones who rank slowly (thus dying a fair amount pre-hero) and who are planning to have a long-lived character, meaning they're more likely to train CON pre-hero instead of just piling on the +CON gear and saving their trains for HP.

It means that you could potentially die 50/3 times and still hit level 51 with max con. At least, you could if your deaths were perfectly spaced out at one per level.

The guy who powers straight to 51 and never dies (or dies very rarely) won't derive much benefit at all.

The guy who is never going to train CON anyway, since he knows he's going to delete before age/con dying and wants to dump all his trains into HP, won't benefit that much either. He'll hit 51 with more CON than he might otherwise have had, but he's not going to have any *more* trains to put into HP. He'll just have a slightly higher CON than he would otherwise. (Which won't really matter, since he's going to delete before CON becomes an issue anyway).

This would be a nice change for me personally since I usually take my time heroing and do a fair amount of pre-hero PK, meaning I have a decent number of pre-hero deaths. Since I know I'm going to be playing my characters over the long haul, I usually keep training CON back up to max until I'm down to the minimum # of trains I need to keep in reserve in order to reverse the -STR/-DEX of old age. Hardly ever do I use trains for increasing HP.

>The guy who is never going to train CON anyway, since he knows
>he's going to delete before age/con dying and wants to dump
>all his trains into HP, won't benefit that much either.

Do people do that? Maybe I'm not as much of a train-whore as I could be. But generally I'm the guy power-ranking to hero, so training my con back up to max for hero is one or two trains at most, so I just kind of take the hit.

When you say that the power-to-51 guy doesn't benefit much from this, you're right, but only if he's still the power-to-51 guy. I think the benefit I would feel from this is that I would then have the option of PKing on the way up without feeling like I'm handicapping myself.

I like the idea of getting rid of train hp. The biggest determiner of base hp should be race constitution and class.

This will be a pretty big nerf to the high INT+WIS races though. Maybe gnomes need it?

I don't know if you guys have any more help for mages coming in (like the shield spell stuff) but if you do decide to get rid of train hp, might want to make it live at the same time you do something positive for INT+WIS characters so it's less of an overall downer for people.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker


'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst. Or however you say Elite'
-Vynmylak

Just my opinion, but I've never liked how gnomes could rival dwarves for health. It just seems artificial, and never worked in my head.

>Just my opinion, but I've never liked how gnomes could rival
>dwarves for health. It just seems artificial, and never
>worked in my head.

But without that they're pretty much simply terrible.

make it scale with age. As you get older you can gain more from your training/ranking.
You still get the trains/10 pracs every 5 levels so quick ranking has no disadvantage but if you hang about at certain ranks, there is still insentive to rank more and restore ones body through hard grafting rank gaining.

young - 0 con per level.
mature - 2/3 con per level.
old - 1/3 con per level.

-----Euan

Have you guys decided on any changes? I'm curious as to how effective these community brainstorms are in bringing about positive change.

There's one for sure I'm planning to do when I get the chance. Although I don't think anyone exactly suggested it here it did come out of my thinking about what people had to say.

.

Have any of you imms ever thought...this person is doing ok, and could get empowered more, or maran'd, , or tatooed, or whatever...but they are only level 35, so I'll keep watching them and if they keep doing what they are doing I'll hit them up when they gain X more levels?

The thought that this is the case is often what spurs my character into cranking out more levels before I am really wanting to.

If it is never the case, then I would be more inclined to go at the pace of my choosing more.

And I'm speaking for me -- obviously we've had some people on staff at some points in time who were themselves in the 'game really begins at hero' camp.

Empowerment/tattoo-wise, never; but then Daevryn empowerment is an odd duck and some of my empowerees have been very sad pandas when they thought, well, if I just power to hero I'll get empowered to hero the next time we talk. Nope.

But even being Nepenthe I tattooed my fair share of under level 20 characters if I thought they were interesting and had a good/unique take on that religion.

I think in the case of something like Maran, and I am not a Fort imm, there is a different standard for promotion at hero vs. midlevels, but I think that speaks more to "it's harder to get promoted early (i.e. as someone new to / with a low amount of time in the cabal)" than a pure function of level.

Two things typically drive my desire to level up.

1) If I'm caballed, there's a certain point where you just don't feel like you're able to do ANYTHING in cabal wars. If you're lvl 20ish, and just plain can't take on the outer guardian, I'm typically going to try levelling up to a point where I can tank it, or I can usually find someone in my pk/group range who can.

2) Mostly the fact that if you look at your character at level X, and what you can go do, then compare that at some level Y higher than X....there's always more stuff you can do. A good 80% or so of the explore areas? Hero-ish level. Want to go explore Teth Azeleth or the mausoleum? Yeah, maybe you can do that at 30-40, but can I still do that at 51 and have an easier time? Heck yeah. Kobold caves? Hell, I can check that out any time I want, but 25's still easier than 10.

On the bright side, explore/observation exp make me want to slow down, and maybe check stuff out when it IS something of a challenge still, but I'm still probably going to explore when it's "moderately easy" versus "one bad repop is going to kill me".

Quests are also another reason I would tend to want to slow down, and maybe finish whatever it is I've found to do before I level out of that range. Unfortunately, a lot of times once I do that quest once, I don't tend to bother doing it again unless I know there's a prize of some sort that I want/need.

High exp penalty characters are another one I'd probably be more interested in powering with, because one of your biggest vulnerabilities (that level difference) becomes less drastic, and ultimately nullified once you reach hero.

Okay, heres a couple (probably bad) ideas:

Now I've never played WoW but I've heard about their epic quests. Perhaps we could implement a huge quest starting at level 30 for each class, but code it in a way that people won't be able to take advantage of... well people will still try to take advantage anyways, thats what players do.

Also another idea I just came up with is that it might be cool to see a 3 person attack depending on the classes in the group (like Chrono Trigger and the 2 or 3 person techs). Only make it a passive ability so that people would have to practice a skill called combo i (lev 30) ii (lev 37) and iii (lev 45). I dont know why, but I always liked flashy passive prog stuff. I cant even come up with names or what the heck the strikes would do though...

Also maybe throwing in some edge points on certain level tiers so even those people that never get edge points (like mine because I don't RP that much) can get an edge or two.

Or throw in an either or bonus at level 30 35 40 45 and 50:

So option A would be gain 10 hp or 5 edge points.

Or just somehow adding a little more diversity to people levels (not saying that there isn't enough though, I've just been playing an xbox indie game called Breath of Death 7 that offers levelling options.)

Anyways I'm sure there's more random crap I could throw out, but maybe those ideas will help you guys think of something that might actually work with the game mechanics.

Also I think you guys should #### with the ass hole players more. You know, in little ways (not by screwing with their stats, but putting the occasional aggro mob in their way or having a giant-ass-demon come hunting them sounds good.)

Thanks for the topic though! I'm sure some people think you

First, I really like the mid levels. In fact, once I hit hero is when I personally start getting bored with characters.

My only real problem comes from the players. It just seems like a "no, I don't want to advance, I'm exploring/learning/hunting" isn't very well received.

Maybe add a way to turn off exp gain so one could still be helpful to groups and get some interaction time without having to power rank. Pretty rare do people interact with me outside a ranking group or someone I just killed/died to.

Maybe some bonuses to explore experience if done in a group, similar to ranking? Really hard to get people to go exploring with you midlevel. (Though I suspect this is because most probably already know the area I'm going to)

I definitely like the idea of mid level explore areas and I'm always down to see more automated quests. I love automated quests. I've found like 55 I think that can be done pre-hero, so there is a lot, but more is better.

Side note. A mob at the Eternal Star that gives hints on where to find appropriate quests your level would be cool. Or suggests level appropriate areas to go explore.

The area list seems outdated/down right wrong on many areas. I use it to figure out where I want to go usually, but many times I run into things that (even the high end of the level range)I can't really handle. Better area help files may be the answer there. Xvart lair for instance. Lot's of poison to be contracted around there and unless you know that, you probably aren't taking a source for curing poison. A note about that in a help file would be nice. Sure there are lots of similar things.

Remove XP loss for death. Or cap it as some less punitive number, e.g., half of what you need TNL or some such. Losing 1/3 CON is already a penalty. I find the XP loss and -1/3 CON together detrimental to exploring. Going from +93.35% tnl to -34.4% tnl does not engender exploring. I know there should be a risk here but losing CON is bad enough I think. Also, after such a death I just power a few levels to get the stale taste gone... And I like to explore.

Apart from this I like the area explore for midbies idea.

Finally, scaleable skills. What I mean here is midbie skills that still have utility at hero. I'm thinking of partial shifts (useless at hero). Elbow is another one. I remember when afflict and mend wounds came in. This type of scaling is what I'm getting at. I think a lot of players hate wasting practices on something that has only limited shelf life. This is a reason to power through such levels.

Otherwise I think it's fine. I do not expect perfect balance between all classes at all levels. The evolution of the balance stick is one thing that makes the game so addictive I think. There are so many subtitles there.

At one time it became basically impossible to level once you reached a certain xp loss. I had a char once that literally had an xp hole of 250k and that was at level 49ish (edited to add: I was also a cabal leader (herald to be exact)). I got my xp set to normal levels as a reward for basically dominating the easter egg hunt.

I have no problems with the current setup. -30% is nothing. That's an extra 10-15 minutes.

>At one time it became basically impossible to level once you
>reached a certain xp loss. I had a char once that literally
>had an xp hole of 250k and that was at level 49ish (edited to
>add: I was also a cabal leader (herald to be exact)). I got my
>xp set to normal levels as a reward for basically dominating
>the easter egg hunt.
>
>I have no problems with the current setup. -30% is nothing.
>That's an extra 10-15 minutes.


It may be nothing for those who know their way around but it can be hell on those of us trying to hero for a first time and not knowing the different areas. If you have to rely on someone else leading in areas you haven't been where there are aggressive creatures and have no idea where to run to get away the newbie always dies for sure.

I've died several times now always when I have like 1 more damn kill to rank and it's not easy climbing back up when you're still learning the lands.

Also when you can't get a group you could be off learning new areas but theres a good chance of dying there too.. then an exp hole for trying to learn new places.

That's a good idea. With my first character, Fungor, I learned much about how to stay alive. I heroed the character and explored a lot, most of Thera. The timeline for heroing is shown here:

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=31&topic_id=4113&mesg_id=4117&page=

Oh, I know. I've been playing for 10+ years. I did not explore at all until hero then. Just ranked. Why risk it? Again, losing CON is bad enough. The fun stick just hates seeing -34% tnl...

is that you can't lose anymore xp so feel free to do all the exploring you want now and worry about getting out of that xp hole afterwards.

Threads like this tell me otherwise, but when I am mid level and wondering what else I might be able to do to get Maran, or maybe some immexp, or empowered, or any of the other types of imm dependant things, I always start looking at my TNL and thinking that maybe I would garner more attention if I were higher level.

I push the thought down most times, as I have seen threads like this and posts that say that there are no negative outlooks on anyone that stays at a level range for a while, and that the game doesn't start at hero, but over time I always end up thinking I guess I'd better go ahead and rank up because I'm not seeing attention with what I am doing now.

For me, just a little nudge that what I am doing is ok, or even a poke on the head on what I could be doing better with my midlevel self would go a long way in feeling more secure that powering up isn't the answer until I just flat out want to move on up.

For the most part I guess my answer to what else I could be doing comes down to being a better player to earn things, but in a couple of cases now I have gotten positive imm feedback after my deletion thinking I was failing, which if I'd had a smidge of before that I would have gleefully applied the spurs and continued on.

Right now it's a powerranking culture, and I can't keep up. I notice if there is a good group, the other two are ready to continue for 8 straight hours until they hero!

mid-ranks used to be full of PK'ing, now, for most, to enjoy pk'ing you are either committed to walking the ends of Thera for an hour until you find someone or ranking up, joining a cabal, and raiding.

Soooo, maybe look at the following

Racial XP penalties:

I want to see more race/class combos - i'm tired of only human necromancers and human thieves.

I like how warriors work, with the different races offering different options in combination with legacies. But again, it's also why the drow warriors don't necessarily take their time.

If not adjusting the xp penalties, maybe adjust the spell/saves/hit level mechanics. Really, if you are a higher rank, shouldn't just knowing more skills and having more HP be enough of an advantage?

Ranking areas:

When the mud was geographically smaller, it was dangerous (and fun) to rank, because you were so much easier to find... and that meant more PK fights. Not just because there were twice the people on. To find someone now, it's no fun. I never played cabals, but I do now, just so I can find a fight easier. Either you should choose to hide and be bored, or take risk and be out there.

You talked awhile back about adjusting Where to potentially locate people in adjacent areas, I think that is a great idea.

I also really really think that easy-to-get-to areas should be ranking friendly - no camo'd rangers one-shotting you, no impaling skeletons, I mean, honestly. So you have incentive to be there, but risk getting attacked. On that note, there need to be more places for thieves to sneak around and find ranking groups :p Too ranger-friendly right now!

Definitely worth looking at. What keeps me playing is the exploring and endless details of classes to learn, but I miss lowbie PK fun.

I don't agree with the call for expanded where at all. I haven't played conjurers or an air shifter, yet I have never found it too hard to locate someone I was hungry to find. It's far more likely that I take the stance of, "I don't think checking out area X, Y, and Z is worth the hassle when my target will most likely flee/quaff at the first sign of trouble."

Now chasing someone is more difficult, but I think knowing areas and trying to give someone the slip or find their hiding spot is what brings out some of the art to pk that is so often decided by bash, evade, gear and prepping.

1. One key thing I believe is Spellpower plays a vital role in a Mage's life, as does Enhanced Damage for Melee Characters.

Toss in Lagging skills, Defenses, and Dual Wield and any way you stack it 20-35ish the mage is different tactics.

I believe Spell Power should actually award MORE in the beginning so that spells are slightly more consistant, I know it is counter to how skills work, but that would equalize damage for mages at least at the level where most spells are Horrible in their spell %'s.

Spell Power an Enhanced Damage just get learned at a MUCH different rate, every weapon swing is a chance for E.D. to Increase, where as Spellpower takes actual spells to be cast (Mana), so there's a chance to increase E.D. as long as your HP is ok, where as S.P requires HP and Mana.

2. Next up is defenses, I would LOVE Mages to have more defenses, but frankly they'd be really powerful with them at the 35-51 range. This is out of left field, but maybe allow mages to train Dodge or Shield Block to a low % ONLY, i.e. 50%, 45%, 30% and require 1 prac = 10% even for Elves.
The reasoning behind this is the mage would still have to consider is the Offhand worth it, and knowing that dodge isn't going to save your butt TO often would help.

3. The Veil, Love it or Hate it, it's here to stay. The Veil plays such a vital role in any mages life that playing a Mage with a Thick Veil can frankly suck. I understand that's the reward to Melee and Ragers, however the mages have no Equal way to affect Melee in such a pivotal role. True, a THIN Veil rewards are MASSIVE, but again it's focus on a Mage for better or worse, rather than Melee. I frankly have no idea how to correct this, BUT I still believe the Veil is a GREAT Addition to the game, allowing more dynamic wars/fights/interactions. The Drawback is it's fluctuations. Make it a steady timer if it's not, and make changes from level to Worse/Better much harder to change. For a Thick Veil I'd hope to see the Commander, Drillmaster, Battle Gods, and Drunk Ragers raping and slaying everything within Galadon to Modan. On the flipside for a Thin I'd expect to see Nexians, Fort, Tribunal, AND Scion Mages all running around.

Sorry for the WALLS of text, it comes from my role writing skills.

Seilclavin, the Horrible Pker and Herald Punk

Tone down the base damage of spells, but create equipment stats that are the magician's equivalent to hitroll and damroll. Spellcraft could be altered then to more closely emulate Enhanced Damage.

The workaround to retooling equipment throughout Thera would be to create a spell or an edge that allows mages to transform the hit/dam on existing equipment in a manner that applies it to their spell casting. Newly create mystical equipment and place in a limited fashion.


-------------------
Spell: Mystic Transmogrification (armor|damage)
This spell allows a mage or Arcane thief to apply a percentage of his gear-related melee bonuses to reduce damage taken or to increase the damage of his spells, whether they are naturally cast or through a wand, staff, or scroll. This effect is enhanced by the current mental capacity of the magician.

When cast, the mage cannot benefit from the Battlemage edge. Barrier and Mystic Transmogrification are mutually exclusive.
--------------------

If it was given as a low-level spell, every mage would see some benefit from it, and many might enjoy it even in the high ranks.
Gear selection becomes more important, and it gives a new reason to attack intelligence and wisdom in combat.

So basically... we'd give more damage to high level mages who have either healer help or a full-out gang? That is to say, the kind of mages who don't really give a damn about how much damage they're taking.

the retooling I suggested to base dam and spell craft.

If it was designed properly, I envisioned a high level mage using this spell would have to sacrifice the use of barrier & hp/mana gear in order to get
- current damage output in spells (gear for high damroll)
- have damage reduction on a stick (gear for high ac)

For the most part, isn't mana gear useless? (Let's exclude the conjurer, who plays dress up right before conjuring.) I can think of very few occasions where I ran out of mana when I wasn't ranking. PK fights are way too short.

So, mana gear is worthless in PK.

If you want to consider some kind of gear based spell enhanced damaged, how about modifying based upon total mana and/or total mana capacity. Normal spell damage might be the mage's naked mana total and the modifier be based upon gear based mana.

Woe is he who faces the the 2000 mana pillar of lightning. Of course, that poor little drow mage might have to drop his HPs down, so the perk would have a cost.

Remove all of the 'detect invis' preps. Make invisibility actually mean something again.

Nowadays, it almost doesn't seem worth the mana it takes to cast it.

I second this.. I usually play mages, and have been playing CF off and on for a few years.. still slowly getting the hang of it. It just seems too easy for a rager, even an applicant, to bash me down. I know if they couldnt see invis, that it would be hella easy for the character to be invis their entire life and avoid any pk.. but maybe there could be a compromise.

maybe have the applicants/rager detectinvis not entirely reliable.. like they might know if an invis person is around but not see them, or see them intermittently. This seems more "realistic" for villagers as a person, hypothetically, could learn to sense invisible beings, and maybe see them occasionally.. but to straight up see the invisible like a mage kind of devalues both the invis and detect invis spells for casters, imo.

along with this sub-topic of mages vs melee, it does seem unbalanced how mages suck comparatively at lower levels, but could win the fight at hero. I dont like the idea of making mages more powerful, or more defensive to compensate.. but something to better their chances of avoiding a fight would be nice.

There are of course places to go to hide, but sometimes you need to do other things.. and hiding in some remote location .. well, you might as well just log out.

so im definitely in favor of something that makes invis a little more useful, but not so much to effectivly replace duo or improved invis. Ooh.. maybe on top of what we have now (even with detect invis preps and powers) let invis do an intermittent effect of hiding you on the where command?

25-40 is where its at.

Once I get to 40+ I often lose interest and delete, but before then there's no better PKage.

The big difference I find between "warriors" and "mages" are that equipment helps warriors on low levels a lot more then it does mages. Sure mages can get more hp at low level but it doesn't help much compared to a warrior getting 40+ in dam roll. Not sure what would be the best way to solve this though. Anyone got any ideas?



As for exploring. I would like to do more exploring on lower levels but the levels suggested on the area command doesn't seem to be correct or varies a lot. Going though that and standardize it would help me at least.

I think it has less to do with gear and more to do with how many lagging commands need to be entered before a successful kill.

A mage with only 150 hp is going to take say, 1-2 trips to die. A mage with 800 hp + damage reduction is going to take at least 4-5 trips. That difference is the difference between stacking up tons of kills and having your enemies constantly get away.

Factor in word of recall, flight, bash protection always being up, greater invoker shields/air forms, etc and it becomes even that much more imbalanced.

But the bottom line is that your % likelihood of permalagging with 1-2 bashes/trips/pincers versus 5-6 is a huge statistical difference heavily weighted in favor of the melee character.

Naturally add in all the stuff below that Valg and others posted.

Well to me it is a lot easier to get 40ish dam roll on a warrior type in the low mid levels. But getting great hp gear at the same level on a mage tends to be much harder. So that is why I think the gear is shifted to aid warriors more then mages at lower levels.

I'm not sure how I can help, since I might be one of the very few people who enjoy the mid-levels more than hero, but I'll outline my experiences as a "rank-sitter".

IMHO, some classes can't compete. In this category I put shifters. Basically, I've never had any success (even with preps) killing with non-final forms. They suck. They aren't usually even good at what they're specifically designed for compared to a well to decently-geared melee type.

Invokers I've also struggled with. It seems like their hp gains are even crappier than other mages, and that their hp regen is even crappier, but that could wrong. I tried a low-mid level pking voker recently (Start of 5th age I think) and was very unsuccessful because (as someone mentioned further down) the damage is too unpredictable. I think I was around even on kills deaths, but the RNG isn't what I like determining my fights (unless I'm a rager). I was also an outlander, which I've once again sworn not to play, so that had some effect on my ability to pk.

I've never tried lowbie transmuter. Conjies are pretty much the #### once they get angels/demons, but they also seem to peter out toward hero. Necros are silly easy to pk with at pretty much any level, but they lack much variety in that sleep is pretty much the deciding factor in a win or loss. You land, you win, you don't, you lose.

On the other hand, you have warriors, assassins, and orcs. Most recently I've played a mid-level orc, and like always, they are very very deadly. It's just so much easier to land a kill when you can bash, trip, or otherwise lag an opponent you know you are going to beat in straight up melee. You also have a pretty good idea of just how much damage you are going to do, which makes determining when to GTFO a lot easier.

Honestly, if I could pick a change, I think I'd go with reinstating xp loss for pk losses. Then I'd have an excuse for never ranking out of the mid ranks and the fact that I'm down to 15 con wouldn't matter since I would be gaining any more ranks anways.

Invis is useless in its current form against anyone who is A) Not lazy (this is what gets me killed) B) Not a newbie and C) Not a pre-25 rager. Let other melee classes share in the pain. Bump up hieghtened awareness and other detect invis skills to 25, Make invis like assassin hide in its usability, Make all potions/pills level 25 or higher (I'd say 35) allow for scrolls/talismans at say 25-30. Basically give every mage the opportunity to pick their fights and I think you'd see a lot more low-midbie mages trying to throw down. By making it so they can't just invis once they've gotten in a fight, you also give melee classes a chance for revenge. I'd probably also move recall and teleport up in the level you can get them as a potion/pill and make scrolls and talismans lower for recall.

Basically, allow low level mages the ability to move about more freely than their melee counterparts, but at the cost of a scroll or talisman vs a potion, meaning they can whittle down more easily, and allow them to invis and have that mean something.

Might be too much, but I'd sure abuse the crap out of it.

I think they would shift things over just enough towards low/mid level pk for mages.

I may be the only one who thinks this way, but I was thinking about scrolls and their place in the magic hierarchy. The way I see it now, scrolls are basically used by thieves (because they have no other option), and the few high level scrolls that are useful enough to be used by anyone with scrolls.

The way I imagine a scroll being made in CF is that essentially you have a piece of paper (maybe magic) and a pen (also maybe magic) and you inscribe a spells and impart the power (mana) necessary for that spell to work when the scroll is recited.

On the other hand, potions should be quite a bit trickier. Lots of ingredients, brewing time, storage, etc. etc.

So why are potions more common preps across the board than scrolls? It seems to me that scrolls should cost about 10x less than potions and cover a wider variety of spells. If you could stock up on flight, enlarge, reduce, and the other basic preps as a mage for 1/10th the cost of your potion quaffing melee counterparts, you might be more likely to engage in some midlevel pk before you have the more powerful wands and talismans of protection available. Not to mention scrolls should weigh very little, allowing you to keep a good number on hand.

The way I imagine it, scrolls could become a vital and important part of any young mage's repertoire, giving them access to a much wider variety of preps at a lower level and at a reduced cost compared to melee costs. After all, why should a conjurer be shelling out 200 copper a piece for flight instead of stocking up on 50 copper scrolls of flight? Or why would they have to gather or buy expensive enlarge/reduce potions when they could buy the cheaper scroll equivalents? Granted this would open up more stuff to thieves/rangers/bards and ap's, but one can always make mage-only scrolls.

It just seems like scrolls is a highly underutilized skill simply because by the time you can get scrolls that are worthwhile, you no longer need them as much.

Just a random thought.

Disclaimer: I'm not discussing social/RP goals, because that's independent of level/class/etc. I'm sticking with quantitative pursuits.

Empirically, we see that most characters with high kill rates and low death rates in the mid-levels are melee-based-- typically warriors, assassins, and rangers, with berserkers, thug-ish thieves, and APs somewhere in there. Less often, someone will be aggressive with a mage (invoker, transmuter are least rare), but they tend to die more often than the top-tier melee characters.

This is easy to understand-- if someone gets the drop on your sword-spec warrior, there's a decent chance you can hold off their melee, and flee if they go for high damage instead of lag. (And if they do lag you out, you might beat them. A surprising number of people insist on tripping themselves to death.) If someone gets the drop on your invoker, there's some chance you aren't getting a command in while you melee like a girl. Throw in the large edge in HP inherent to the classes, and it's much harder to 'blitz' sword spec guy.

I'm not saying you can't be PK-successful with every class, but generally speaking the guy who can manufacture clever ways to murder people with lowbie necromancer... can run up that kill count in half the time and a quarter of the losses with a melee build.

Back in the old days, the counter-argument (which I don't like, and can comment on if asked) was that melee types tended to suck at hero, so it was balanced by early strength. Lately, that empirically hasn't been the case-- for example, if I list the 25 deadliest characters now, there are 14 that can't cast/commune/sing, plus 6 more paladins/anti-paladins that are squarely in the hybrid realm. Most did most of their damage at the upper ranks. And while any player can name tough Fifth Age warriors, you certainly can't say that for every class.

This has a negative effect when the perception becomes "If I'm playing one of ~7-9 classes, my optimal strategy is to keep my head down and power-level.", for several reasons:

1) Power-leveling is monotonous, and can wear out one's desire to log on.
2) They try to remove themselves from PK, which reduces options for others.
3) If they don't see a group, they log off because they don't perceive anything to do. Even if leveling was first among other tasks (exploration, raiding, gathering items, PK stuff, etc.), they'd likely hang around, while groupmates might pop up.

(A compounding problem is that melee types are also desirable groupmates, so random low-level mage wants to power-rank but is wanted the least.)

My inclination is that the mid-level mechanical side of the game would be more interesting if:

1) Melee classes 'matured' slower. My bias is that Dual Wield is a sensible target here.
2) The 7-9 classes I mentioned get upgrades in the lower ranks. I think we've come part of the way-- low-rank shifter is a lot better, the newer Spellcraft is kinder to midbies, more midbie-ish wands and other devices exist, transmuters are more viable early, unempowered people have some punch that lasts into the 20s at least, etc.

Both of the above ripple outwards, of course. If you beef up all the mages/etc., PvE (*) gets easier, and if you're not careful you end up skewing the hero ranks as well. Conversely, as you slow down melee types, PvE gets a little harder, although other classes look more attractive as groupmates.

It's not an easy problem, but I can say that the majority (but not all) of the staff I've run this past lean towards some kind of action being good for the game. In particular, it would be nice to be able to tell new players "Play whatever seems the most fun for you." without having to add "Although you might find it a good bit harder." You see a lot of people on the New Player forum with the mindset "I play necromancers.", and telling them "Don't, for now." rarely goes over well.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

(*): Player vs. Environment-- ranking, exploring, gathering items and money, etc. Things you could do if you were the only person on.

I believe this is right on.

If you were going to do anything I would recommend giving mages a boost to their spells.
Or atleast a higher % chance of landing a "big hit" off a spell at lower levels.
A critical hit of sorts. This would give a mage more of a classic glass canon feel.

Other options:
Nerfing dual wield at lower levels slightly.
Nerfing higher level gear on lower level characters.
Giving mages a lower level protective spell that might deflect blows more than on occasion.
Ex: Armor of Bone, Sheen of Stone, etc. Of course these would have to be made inert by higher level protections.
Give healers a damage attack other than kick. ;)
Give all mages shield block and Transmuters dodge. :P

I hope this helps some.

And really, the only thing I don't like is the idea of nerfing warriors and other meleers for balance.

The very idea of making it harder, slower, and more tedious is exactly the opposite of what our aim should be when it comes to getting more people to play the mid ranks.

But otherwise, agreeeeeed!

When I was playing I totally noticed a lot of new lower rank weapons and wands proliferating several areas where such items did not exist before (a certain flail in Eregion, a certain spear in Arboria, a certain wand on a wandering mob, etc, etc) and I just wanted to say that those types of things made me really enjoy rechecking areas for whatever reason.

And yes, there are some nasty low level wands out there. Some are damn near OP if your wand skill is high enough and you have the gold.

nt

I posted something about druids below. I feel they are the class that should be looked towards when balancing out casting. Im a fan of the consept of giving mages more damage reduction and durability early on.

Druids get: (Before level 25)
Carapace like spell.
Protection vs Metals.
Bash protection.
Heal.
Good offensive spells.
Shield Block.
Parry.
Decent Health.

Mages get: (Before level 25)
Crappy low level damage redux (Sheen of stone etc)
Parry.
Low Health.
Very good offensive spells.

Although they get better offensive spells than druids they not near make out the difference in strength when it comes to the protective aspects vs the offensive aspect. To me a druid felt almost as potent as a warrior when it came to durability in both PvE and PvP.

Give mages a way to counter bash early on beyond the reduce/enlarge which dont really work all that well if you meet a warrior with straight DISMEMBERS(or higher) damage at level 20. Give them more damage reduction aswell.

Pre-25 I've killed more with a transmuter than I have a druid. Druids really don't become "powerful" until the mid to upper 20's since one pincer/cranial or any reliable non-traditional lagging maneuver can instantly wipe you off the board. If you have a high xp penalty, your druid has to be more picky about who it fights than a mage. But on the brighter side, at least they don't have to worry about giant bashers.

At level 23 a mage can have Aura and Shield and combined with their other spells that makes them much more survivable than your standard druid vs warriors. The only power a druid has that a mage doesn't is the hit and run. They can hit, get beat up, run away, and heal and try to whittle them down. But in the end you only end up killing the ones that a mage would have totally washed off the board without running.

If you could post some of your lowbie murder-trans logs to the log board, that would be cool. I'm sure you're at least one of the ones I've seen in action.

But transmuter with quickening/parry/mental jolt is okay on lowbie ranks. I'd like to see more invokers, shifters, aps

I found druid to be the most dangerous caster I have ever played. In my experience what you say is false, when I played Baldrien very few people came of as remotly scary to me. The most dangerous people were the dual wielding flail warriors with flails made of plant. All others just could not do enaugh damage to me.

If you get instantly wiped off the board with a druid around level 20, I will claim you do something wrong. Since that is not even remotly my experience. I was tanking two ugruks way before most my warriors could even handle one of them, which is an indication of their defensive power. This isnt even with defensive herbs, just offensive.

If I trip a mage on my warriors, I expect them to die within 2 or 3 rounds. Some die before trip lag is gone, others die to parting blow.

In my opinion a mage isnt even remotly close to the power level of a druid at those levels.

Risk/Reward. Exploring at hero brings results which benefit your char for the rest of time. Exploring at mid-range gets you the rank 12 orc sword of mediocrity. Why do at 30 what i can at hero, with more tools?

...and not risk a mob death at the same time (which will be made worse by the fact that if everyone is fannying around at rank 30 then there will be no one to group with)

re: pk'ing. At sub hero it's bloody tough to actually find anyone these days and if you do they just recall. Gone are the hey-days of Emerald Forest/Tar Valon.

I think the advantage of exploring early is getting edges earlier. As well as more explore xp as there are level restrictions on getting it in places.

I mean it isn't unreasonable to do several hero level area explores at level 30 (like half of them) and the advantage is that your level 30 with a couple more edges. Since fewer people have edges that is a relatively larger advantage then having them at hero when more people also have them.


and a mob death isn't usually more then an extra 30 minutes to maybe an hour of ranking... just think of it as time to let your skills go up without mindlessly spamming them for hours alone.

Couple things I find frustrating:

1. You run out of movement faster, which is exacerbated by

2. It's harder and/or more time consuming to gather gold.

Also- you can usually get hero gear over time, by taking one piece at a time from PKs, but once you die its all gone, and you're not going to be able to regear with anything close to what you had before. So death becomes a little more frustrating.

It also seems like there are some nastier mismatches at the low and mid ranks than there are at hero. Though, if you're playing a combo that has a huge advantage against someone...that can be a "plus" instead of a "minus".

I don't get this mentality of you can only get one good set of gear on a character in a lifetime.

If you did it once what stops you from doing it again.

At least for me it is the realization that at relatively low levels there is a lot of luck in the piecing together a good set. If I am a level 25 character and mostly wearing gear I can only get myself at hero then if I lose that set it might be that I cannot replace it for a long time. Not, that it is impossible, just less likely.

I feel that in the mid ranks the problem is not mechanical as much as it is players perceptions.

You have listed stats further down this thread where protections at mid ranks are nill, gear is less good, so on and so forth.

The reason a lot of people have trouble in the mid ranks is because they never bothered to learn how to play them. Learning how to be succesful with a build takes experimentation and experience and if as a player you have been powering through the mid ranks the last 10 years chances are while you have a lot of CF experience you have very little playing cf at the mid ranks experience.

Now I think a little part of that has to do with non melee classes having a tougher time in the PvE arena in getting gears and much less incentive to learn these things since when it comes to ranking (what they spend the vast majority of their time doing at these ranks) you are better off just waiting for a melee guy who did do these things to come around and pick up the slack.

Another downside to mid rank play is you can only partially participate in cabal wars which seems to be the driving force of interaction in the game.

You can't participate in taking an item unless you are a support class because the inners will deep fry you in moments. There are actually a lot of instances where you can't participate in retrievals effectively either. Being wanted vs tribunals with heros around, imperial centurions, fortress hero healers, bioempathy, so on and so forth effectively barring mid rank retrievals and when cabals don't have their items for more then 15 minutes you tend to see much fewer around at hero until enemies log off for an easy retrieve.


My suggestion is to start rewarding vissibly some less traditional mid rank power houses, like temp titles would be huge. I know last names are there but they have really lost their value to the majority of the playerbase as a reward.

I know, crazy?

You mentioned something that reminded me of something else. Mages and non-melee classes in general rely heavily on others at the lower levels. They rely on them far less so near hero. This is probably yet another motivation to power through the low/mid ranks.

1) Balance mages vs. melee

there's a balancing problem at low/mid ranks since melee damage is basically a function of your eq, while mage damage is a function of the level. This means there will always be problems balancing the game since the power range of characters becomes very big. Easy fix for this:

Make eq work like weapons, so that if you are level 20 wearing a level 50 piece of eq, then all stats from that eq piece is modified by (MIN(char_level/eq_level), 1)..

So the formula for all eq stats would become ROUNDUP(eq_stat*MIN(char_level/eq_level, 1))

It would probably suck for my lowbie ragers from a powergaming POV, but it would also make things more fun if mages tried to fight back instead of teleport when a melee guy shows up on where.

It will also have a side effect of reducing the incentive to cheating eq to lowbie chars (good) and to full loot decked heros as a lowbie (i don't care about this.. but i know others do.. so good i suppose as it might reduce churn).

Side note: I used roundup because it's boring if eq starts giving no stats at all.

2) Mage power vs. Invisibility

At low level fights are usually over quicker than at hero. Especially if it is between a warrior and a mage since the mage has neither defenses nor damage reduction. And warriors do not do *that* much less damage. This means that mages will usually choose to go invisible rather than to fight.

Solution: Move all parry/dodge/shield block/shield spell to pre-10 levels. Move invisibility to level 25. (This change coupled with the above might actually make mages too strong.. I think one strong reason mages generally get their asses kicked at low/mid ranks is that they just try to avoid PK and power level. Which means ####ty gear, no preps, and low skill percentages. As well as often being caught unawares (since they teleport when they see an enemy otherwise).

3) Class specific adjustments:

Some classes have no or just one decent skill and crappy melee at the low ranks. This means no tactical diversity. Try to ensure that all classes have a decent number of options as soon as pk starts. Pre-form shapeshifters have nothing, and 1st tier form is usually sucky for its level.
Invokers have only a couple of damage spells and no real tactics.
Pre-familiar conjurers have only magic missile. With familiar they might be able to fight, but still not well enough.

4) Incentives:

4a) Take away level requirement for edges. Will give you an incentive to explore / PK / RP early.

4b) Challenges (a new thing): You can choose from a selection of challenges from your guildmaster that you can try to complete before hitting levels 10,20,30,40,51. If you complete the challenge before reaching that level, you get a couple of edge points. Challenges could be:

Challenge of perfection: Master 5 skills
Challenge of blood: PK 5 different people
Challenge of commerce: Trade goods to a value of 100 gold.
Challenge of crime: Become wanted
Challenge of exploration: Find 5 exploration points.
Challenge of questiness: Complete 5 quests.
Challenge of masochism: Die 3 times
Challenge of glory: Defeat 3 different opponents in the arena
etc...

You can choose the same challenge as many times as you want, but the
threshold increases every time if you do.

4c) (Thought about this quite late, but I really like it) The first death you suffer at each level doesn't cost you any CON.

4d) (I really like this one too) You age slower (in years per RL hour) at lower ranks.

To explain 4c) and 4d): The most time efficient strategy for maximizing your hero rank power is to power level and then do explore/obs/commerce XP and PK for edge points. This aims to subsidize doing stuff at lower ranks.

Just wanted to throw out one thing quick:

>To explain 4c) and 4d): The most time efficient strategy for
>maximizing your hero rank power is to power level and then do
>explore/obs/commerce XP and PK for edge points. This aims to
>subsidize doing stuff at lower ranks.

I don't think this is actually true as the edge system is designed, but maybe I need to update the helpfile and explain why better.

In short, it does offer some incentives for early PK/exploration/etc.

I don't think the solution is to nerf high level gear for low level characters. I think if you actually manage to get that kind of gear at low level, you've essentially earned it.

What I see as the problem is that most good limited lower level gear becomes the staple re-gear for heroes before they head off to get their better stuff... Thus preventing that gear from actually circulating amongst lowbies/midbies. Potential solutions here are to either change how such gear is limited, or to make it less useful to higher level characters and more useful to lower level characters. Good examples of gear that already works in that manner are both the Soul Drain item available to necromancers, and the questy pathfinding boots.

Everything else you've said I can agree with, save for invisibility. Getting detect invis is pretty much laughable these days, so your change only actually affects wannabe rager applicants and applicants pre-25 anyhow.

I think the difference is that more melee based characters take the time to equip themselves since they also tend to be doing the tanking and suck fiercely if they try to power to level 40 in fine leather gear like many mages do.

I have seen all sorts of non melee bulds tear swaths through the mid ranks just by actually getting mid level mage gear.

The only thing I would correct is that those mages have a much rougher time getting that gear solo to pk with then melee chars of the same rank.

In a lot of ways, playing a mage in the 30s is like playing a mage at 51: you can only handle certain people without preps. In the 30s, those preps are just a lot harder to come by.

I've played all kinds of mages to at least the low 30s, save necromancer, and never found myself really scared of melee opponents as long as I had some combination of shield, stoneskin, and/or protection, plus of course the usual flight/etc.

Obviously you can't have full ABS at 30, but you can have enough HP through equipment and damage reduction through preps to tear through the same percentage of your range as you would easily tear through with a warrior or something like that.

>> I think the difference is that more melee based characters take the time to equip themselves since they also tend to be doing the tanking and suck fiercely if they try to power to level 40 in fine leather gear like many mages do.

Yeah I agree (and wrote) that this is a huge factor. But do you really think it is so only because mage players don't need eq to rank?

>> I have seen all sorts of non melee bulds tear swaths through the mid ranks just by actually getting mid level mage gear.

Through the mid range sure (for some classes), but when was the last time you saw a mage beating ass between 11 and 20?

I can tell you I have killed people with first tier defense forms at level 14. I have killed people with just mental jolt at 14, I have killed people with just magic missle at 11, I have killed people with just icicle at 12.


In the 10-15 rank range I think mages and shaman have a heavy advantage over melee. Mostly because aside from warriors most melee classes still only have second attach and no dual wield, can't do direct damage, and can't lag reliably. If you have a direct damage spell up at 90% you can just 3 round people with it over and over. You don't even need dam redux you can gear for AC and pick off the people still rocking fine leather with only 100 hp and practice weapon damage output.

Badly formatted, but this is what happened when level 19 shifter tried to kill my level 12 warrior. He died in murder lag, and that was with me wearing 4 pieces of fine leather. (And yes I know, anecdotal evidence doesn't count. But when it comes to racking up kills at any level 11-30, I bet on a melee class 100% of the time. The only mage contender in that range would be a conjurer with demon/angel.)

<100%hp 100%m 86%mv> <10 PM 80.46%> civilized >
<36mYou yell 'Help! I am being attacked by someone!'[br/>A black soldier ant fades into existence.
You parry a black soldier ant's bite.
A black soldier ant has a few scratches.

<100%hp 100%m 86%mv> <10 PM 80.46%> civilized > whe
People near you:
(PK) Djabree East Sumner's Road
(PK) a black soldier ant East Sumner's Road
A black soldier ant has a few scratches.

<100%hp 100%m 86%mv> <10 PM 80.46%> civilized >
Your slash <31mdevastates a black soldier ant![br/>Your slice <31mdevastates a black soldier ant![br/>Your slice <31mEVISCERATES a black soldier ant![br/>Your slash <31mdevastates a black soldier ant![br/>A black soldier ant's bite <31mdevastates you![br/>A black soldier ant is gushing blood.

<84%hp 100%m 86%mv> <10 PM 80.46%> civilized >
Your slash <31mdecimates a black soldier ant![br/>Your slice <31mMUTILATES a black soldier ant![br/>Your slice <31mmaims a black soldier ant![br/>A black soldier ant is DEAD!!
<1mYou have become better at second attack![br/>
And level 12 warrior vs level 15 transmuter


Marlom is here.

<100%hp 100%m 81%mv> <12 PM 80.50%> civilized > murder Marlom
People near you:
(PK) Djabree Park Road
(PK) Marlom Park Road

<100%hp 100%m 81%mv> <12 PM 80.50%> civilized > <36mMarlom yells 'Help! I am being attacked by Djabree!'[br/>Your slash <31mmauls Marlom.[br/>Marlom is covered with bleeding wounds.

<100%hp 100%m 81%mv> <12 PM 80.50%> civilized >
Marlom's pierce <31mmisses you.[br/>Your slash <31mdevastates Marlom![br/>Marlom is gushing blood.

<100%hp 100%m 81%mv> <12 PM 80.50%> civilized >
You parry Marlom's pierce.
Your slash <31mmaims Marlom![br/>Your slash <31mdecimates Marlom![br/>Marlom is mortally wounded, and will die soon, if not aided.
Marlom is nearly dead.

<100%hp 100%m 81%mv> <12 PM 80.50%> civilized > st

Your slash <31mEVISCERATES Marlom![br/>Marlom is DEAD!!
Marlom splatters blood on your armor.

1) Soften XP penalties based on the race/class/popularity/power of a particular combo. The goal here is to give such a combo a more sensible level range to deal with. For example, a human ranger has an XP penalty of 200. An elf ranger's is 700. Considering that there really is no great advantage to being an elf ranger...in fact, I think most might agree that the elf is disadvantaged compared to the human, the current system really sort of screws the elf, right? I don't think every single instance of this needs to be re-tooled, but some of the ones that spring to mind are dark-elf necro, felar AP, cloud healer, and gnome warrior (shoosh I don't wanna hear it!).

2) I posted down below as a reply, but I'll post again here - make movement regen much better for all levels (not just the low ones), but make it so that it goes back to how it is now when adrenalin from a PC encounter sets in. This makes it so that mv-hampering tactics are still viable in PK, but there would be less down-time in the midst of action.

3) How about making the whole Area Explore concept scalable based on your level? For instance, any character at level 51 won't be too freaked out by gathering a group and exploring the castle of barovia. But, take a group of three level 25's and it is a pretty epic proposition. The net result would be increased explore and observation XP for those who tackle relatively difficult places earlier in life. Additionally, they'd gain the benefit of a swift corpse decay and gear return. I'm sure tons of other cool ideas could spawn from this. Also, if you die in an area explore, how about reducing or altogether nullifying the XP penalty? I mean, you're taking a chance by even going to one, because they are inherently more difficult than standard areas. Ideally, the new Explore-For-Tots areas would be chock full of questy goodness and cool gear, so it might mean a long-term retrofitting of some current places to live up to that.

Edited to add: One real pain in the butt for non-high-level characters to deal with are nasty maledictions that last for exceptionally lengthy amounts of time. I.e.; PLAGUE. The fact of the matter is that abilities like this one make exploring a very daunting proposition for lowbies and midbies. I'd suggest revisiting some cases where mobs cast it or "skill" it like freaks. Case in point; that mummy in the castle of barovia.

4) Tiered cabal raiding and retrievals. I know, crazy right? But, check this out: What if cabal members could only raid/retrieve for whatever portions of their cabal powers that they can currently make use of? This would utterly eliminate the effectiveness of lowbie retrievals, and even raids. Each cabal could be made quite a bit larger, with various guardians instead of just an outer and an inner. Each would basically hold sway over a given power. So, let's say the nightwalker at the Chasm guards over divination and nightfist, but if the Scions are holding an item, it guards the lowest tier powers of another cabal. So, if the Scions had the Orb, lowbie squires and acolytes could kill the nightwalker to regain zeal and golden aura (or whatever the hell that power is called). I'm not necessarily saying this is a great idea, or that this would be the best way to implement it, but if the basic gist is followed it could result in non-hero ranks being just as exciting from a risk/reward standpoint.

First, shinies. Best shinies, hands down, are available to heroes. Getting shinies at lower levels generally involved following heroes around and jacking from their corpses. However, this comes with its own stigma, and players like me think its really lame if thats all my character really does. I've noticed that when my characters get access to more powerful gear early on, I'm more prone to go explore or pk with him before hero. If my guy is still using ragesteel, skull rings, and charred bracers at level 40, I figure I might as well hit hero in order to grab the best gear possible, rather than waste my time gathering shinies that I'll end up replacing later anyway, or pking at a disadvantage versus full hero sets.

I think creating powerful limited items that become significantly less effective at hero would be a good way to remedy the situation. You could also use these items to remedy extreme imbalances, rather than tweaking the nature of the classes themselves.

For example, a pair of magical boots which allow elf/dark elf thieves under level 40 to reflect deathblows, but crumble when worn by someone past level 40. No big balance killer, just something which makes playing a gimped class like elf thief more bearable in the middle ranks.

Or a prep which you eat that nullifies the first bash that hits you and returns ice damage. However, the second and third bashes will hit and their effects will not be nullified. This sort of thing would help nullify the giant powerbasher combos, and encourage more mages and bards and people who are really vulnerable to bash to stick around, as they might actually have a chance versus that stuff.

Things like that which make me think I have a fighting chance~

Second, cabal balance. Certain cabals are significantly, significantly stronger at lower levels than others, which don't reach their peak until hero.

Tribunal, Outlander, Battle, and Nexus have significant powers at lower levels. If you make a chart of some of the best lowbie pkers in the game, I'd suggest that of the caballed ones, the majority of them skew towards outlander and battle.

Tribunal and Nexus can still both contribute significantly at lower levels, though their powers are less dangerous in pk. But you can still explore very well with nexus powers, for example.

Scion and Empire have decent powers at lower levels, but really their powers generally don't reach the peak until hero. However, with so many enemies they generally have a more difficult time leveling than other cabals, so they can take awhile to hit hero anyway.

Fortress powers are just trash at low levels, and promotion is based on imm approval. Thus, fort characters have a huge incentive to charge straight to hero, as Imms generally snoop long-lasting hero characters more than lowbie-midbie characters (for good reason!). Thus, you're much more likely to be promoted and given access to powers that aren't such trash at hero. There do exist cases of midbie maran/acolyte, but those are generally given to exceptional players. Its hard to justify maraning a good midbie whose at level 38 with 80 hours, when you have a bunch of hero squires who aren't quite as good, but have heart and have waited much longer and tried just as hard.

>Tribunal, Outlander, Battle, and Nexus have significant powers
>at lower levels. If you make a chart of some of the best
>lowbie pkers in the game, I'd suggest that of the caballed
>ones, the majority of them skew towards outlander and battle.

I can't quickly vouch for historically, but currently this isn't extremely true. Looking at the PK ratio of all characters at the time they hit 40, (or current PK ratio for characters between 30 and 40 -- I originally was going to list them separately but I think it makes it too obvious who's who) who had a positive PK ratio and at least 10 kills at that time:

Battle: 32-1, 26-2, 11-7.

Fortress: 35-3, 41-3, 19-0, and a 15-8.

Nexus: 57-9.

Outlander: 26-1, 25-7.

Empire: 53-6, 38-14, 22-5, 15-9, 14-4, 12-1.

Tribunal: None.

Herald: None.

Scion: 73-1, 38-5, 33-3, 15-2.

>What potential change or addition, if any, would make the
>sub-hero levels of the game more interesting to you?
>Interesting in this case being defined as: you'd be more
>interested in PKing/exploring/RPing/etc. in them (vs. powering
>through them) than today.

Some of this may have been said already.

The biggest thing for me is probably damage scaling. I find that until the mid 40s people, particularly warriors, are doing much more damage compared to hitpoint pools than they would at hero. At the low and mid levels it's much easier to lose 30% in a round Edit: of melee. Recently for example I was in a fight against a warrior and figured that I was at 60% or so, and losing, but I thought that since I normally don't fight warriors in the low ranks I'd give it a shot. Well I was dead in the two rounds of lag on that command, which wouldn't have been even close to a guaranteed win for me even if it had worked (and it failed because of low skill). And that's fine, no big deal, but at hero if I'm at 60% it's almost always safe to try one more command to see if you can turn the tide.

More edit:
And that's much of what it comes down to. Even when I'm on the other side of that matchup, going bam-bam-bam and dropping a few mages with my village app wasn't very satisfied. It just seemed kind of stupidly easy. I didn't even have to do anything "murder" was enough or just "oh you failed your spell now you die before I even bother entering a command" The problem is that at low levels you only get interesting fights if you have two highly defensive characters. At mid levels this is less the case, but still applies somewhat.

Part of that, admittedly, is gear. I tend not to gear as much at low levels, and much of that is because I don't value the low levels. There is a circularity there. At the same time, there's much more risk. I've taken numerous mob deaths while trying to grab a piece of gear that's decent and immediately thought "damnit I'm an idiot why didn't I just powerank to hero and then I wouldn't have this exp hole). Even if it is gear, the fact is that melee benefits far more from gear than non-melee.

Possible way to address: scale +damage on gear the same way weapon averages are scaled by level, and/or apply +damage to spells in some way.

The second thing is skill gains. I hate skill spamming. So basically if I fight before hero I haven't had all that time fighting mobs, receiving level gains and so forth, in order to let my skills mature naturally. By hero I'll have a lot of things perfected without having to waste a lot of time skill spamming. And maybe it's supposed to be balanced in the earlier ranks, but my impression is that defenses, for example, make a pretty hefty difference. Overall the lower level of skills in the mid ranks makes fights less predictable, which would be tolerable, except that it also leads to the kind of sudden deaths mentiond above.

The third big thing for me is con loss. Personally I think that all practices and gains should be based on the greater of your current stat or the max you have ever had that stat trained to.

I see no reason hp gains at your level should be based on your current con rather than your racial max con. It doesn't add anything fun that fighting extensively in the midranks means having to wear crappy con gear while ranking. I'll also admit that I'm just an idiot and frequently screw up wis/int gear and fail to wear the right thing when leveling or practicing. It's ultimately no fun at all to have your character permanently weakened because you were too stupid to remember to wear the right hat when you went to the trainer.

To a lesser extent I just don't want to end up at hero, where I consider the real action to be, with half my con. Maybe if midrank fighting were more important to me this issue would go away.

And if I had my druthers con wouldn't reduce with deaths. Instead you just have a death counter that starts at con * 3, goes down one when you die, and can be trained up like a stat.

What the #### is that attachment? I didn't attach anything

Balance. The classes are way too imbalanced in the midlevels.

Edited to add: This basically boils down to survivability. Mages without dam redux tend to get owned hard and mana/hp/damage of classes doesn't balance well until hero.

My question would have to be, what class if any do you think is unplayably bad in PK at, say, level 30?

Name something and I can easily find you someone who ran, let's say, 30-3 or so with it in the midlevels, although I would agree that my expectations are generally that a level 30 assassin can run a much better ratio than a level 30 shifter played by the same player.

Like you said, you can come back with a counter-argument for any build someone raises.

I can't think of any class that is, across the board, unplayable in PK at 30, though bard is towards the bottom of the list.

Why don't you guys just crunch the numbers if you want to know? You have all this data about characters, their builds, their PK stats at various levels, and tons of logs. Instead if soliciting the information and then batting it down, just tell us. Either the data supports the suggestion that some classes, or just specific builds are (too?) weak or it doesn't.

>Like you said, you can come back with a counter-argument for
>any build someone raises.

Sure, but I'm still interested in what the opinions are.

Maybe someone sees an angle I don't.

I agree that the classes aren't perfectly balanced at 30, but to some degree I dispute the idea that they're necessarily perfectly balanced (or maybe even overall better balanced) at 51 either.

You're right, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to such a huge number of factors that aside from everyone agreeing one class is utterly hamstrung at 30 compared to all others, opinions probably don't mean much.

Race, alignment, class-specific build parameters, equipment, preps, cabal, the RNG, and many more smaller factors all determine the power of a class. There are certain classes that are more than playable by the average player at 30, but insanely difficult to deal with when played by a very skilled player. There are classes whose power at 30 depend entirely on luck, while others on class-specific specialization. So many things go into the "blender" that at the end of the day, it's really hard, I think, to look at the problem from a high level and come up with anything meaningful.

I think it would be a lot easier to look at the data, crunch the numbers, and then try to identify why certain trends exist or don't exist. Why are people playing certain classes or builds? Why are they avoiding others? What makes certain classes so vulnerable to others? It's all a lot more interesting to me than, "Xyz is OP because I died to it yesterday :("

Wood-elf/high elf bard at rank 30 is just screaming kill me to most people. Then again they can land a sleep and sing people up a bit, but then most people will just run. I pretty much use that range to perfect a capella, just cause I find having a shield is the only thing that gives me enough time to get away in pk.

But that's bards. Screw bards. Even if I play a lot of them these days.

>Name something and I can easily find you someone who ran,
>let's say, 30-3 or so with it in the midlevels, although I
>would agree that my expectations are generally that a level 30
>assassin can run a much better ratio than a level 30 shifter
>played by the same player.

At some point, the distinction between what is possible in the hands of a very skilled player and what is likely in the hands of the other 90% of players becomes important. The initial question was regarding getting more people to spend more time in the midlevels.

Instead of saying, "Here are 3 characters who went 30-3 as a transmuter by level 30" maybe we can ask "Why can't more people go 15-15 as a transmuter at level 30?"

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker


'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst. Or however you say Elite'
-Vynmylak

>Instead of saying, "Here are 3 characters who went 30-3 as
>a transmuter by level 30" maybe we can ask "Why can't
>more people go 15-15 as a transmuter at level 30?"

That gets to be a difficult question and maybe a chicken and the egg problem; in practice, most transmuters power through the 30s, and the few that don't are mostly very PK successful.

Having played a transmuter who powered through the 30s:

- With mostly fine leather, I was a punching bag in PK.
- All the old low-level wand locations I knew 6+ years ago are either gone or appear to be limited out.
- I found the risk of gathering better equipment or exploring to be very high solo. With a melee class I can whittle down mobs of a similar level while mostly naked. With the transmuter, I couldn't. In fact, it would seem that there are more mobs with weapon specs than I remember which pretty much destroy my transmuter even when I have several levels over them.
- I don't care to burden groups to spend an hour or two running me across Thera to equip me in midlevel armor every time I lose it.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker


'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst. Or however you say Elite'
-Vynmylak

Wouldn't outfit provide you with something a little more passable?

Beyond that, I think putting together a suit where most of the pieces are let's say 10-20 HP isn't that hard as a midlevel transmuter. Is that enough to be helpful in PK? I think it is, but maybe it's not to you or others. For example, things like sandy cloaks.

Additionally, my experience as a midlevel killing mage is that most of the people who kill me are not interested in my HP gear.

There's still a lot of low level wands that are mostly in, but I can understand that if you're not aware of them that doesn't help you any.

Invokers, shifters, necromancers, pickpockets, elf rangers.

IF you find someone with 30:3 look at his hours. Perhaps he got this ratio for 400 hours, looking for cheap kills, good ganks and so on, while warrior can rack this in much, much less time and effort.

I'd also be very thankful for logs where, lets say, invoker kills average warrior in straight fight.

>Invokers, shifters, necromancers,

I've seen these things with good midlevel ratios in non-ridiculous amounts of hours, with low gank-o-meter.

>pickpockets

This I haven't seen much PK success with at 30 (at least for a pure pickpocket), but I'd argue if you've built that character you've decided you would rather steal from people than kill people, at least at that point in the game.

>, elf rangers.

I know I've seen very successful midlevel wood-elf rangers; elf/d-elf, maybe not.

>IF you find someone with 30:3 look at his hours. Perhaps he
>got this ratio for 400 hours, looking for cheap kills, good
>ganks and so on, while warrior can rack this in much, much
>less time and effort.

Probably what you're going to find mostly is it takes the mage 100 hours where maybe it takes the warrior 40 or something. Definitely melee has some advantage in those levels.

>I'd also be very thankful for logs where, lets say, invoker
>kills average warrior in straight fight.

Usually these logs are about two rounds long. A midlevel invoker that isn't lagged out can pour out a terrifying amount of damage, not the least of which because hardly anyone gears for saves at those levels. (This, too, is an interesting chicken and the egg problem.)

>Usually these logs are about two rounds long. A midlevel
>invoker that isn't lagged out can pour out a terrifying amount
>of damage, not the least of which because hardly anyone gears
>for saves at those levels. (This, too, is an interesting
>chicken and the egg problem.)
>

I find this hard to belive. I can not imagine an invoker killing one of my warriors at level 30, given that we are both roughly the same level and at full health. My level 30 warriors tend to have in the region of 30-40 kills and 0-5 deaths(closer to 0 than 5 in most cases). A warrior (non giant) with half a brain will have 30-40(I think ive had over 50 at some point even, without any hero looting, just stuff I pick from my kills) damage roll at 30, which means that a voker unless hero geared is gonna die in a bloody pulp in 2-3 rounds unless prepped with aura, shield and protection etc. It should be mentioned that 95% of mages, or non-tank classes experience the same treatment.

Even though a voker can dish out major damage, a warrior with no vulnerability is not gonna lose 600 health in 2-3 rounds.. That is high damage even for a hero.

Im a fairly competent player, but I can not produce even remotly the same results with a mage at those levels. I have tried, several times. The most balanced casting class ive played is the druid. I may even go as far as to call them overpowered from level 15-40, then they even out in hero range. If you try to model mages after druids sort of.. atleast when it comes to defensive ability and when you get protections it should get MUCH more balanced.

Druids get 2 damage redux spells, the carapace thing and the protection from metals very early. They also get very nasty offensive abilities and shield block + parry. Things like thorn and fireseeds completly destroyed people in mid levels, and is easily nearly as damaging as invoker spells and moreso damaging than shifter forms etc. Mages get their damage reduction stuff much later, they only get parry and their offensive abilities is well.. stronger than a druids by a bit but not not nearly enaugh.

Oh and druids got a fair bit more health than a mage aswell.

Give mages the shield spell early and let them keep it up 24/7, give them some avoidance spell that either evade damage fairly regularly (perhaps implement it in pass door) or atleast reduce damage consistently on hits. Make the pass door thing in such a way that barrier nullify it. This way you increase mage strenght thoughout the ranks, aswell as give them a needed boost at hero if they dont have barrier.

nt

It's been a few years since I deleted my last invoker. I'll see what if anything I still have.

>I've seen these things with good midlevel ratios in non-ridiculous >amounts of hours
This means you saw it multiple times on different chars of other players, not yours.

>This means you saw it multiple times on different chars of
>other players, not yours.

Correct, but I don't save logs of what other people are doing. :P

nt

I probably can't even do that since I don't want to name current characters and, at this point, our surviving logs only go back to the server wipe. If I get the chance later I'll see what I can dig up.

(I also can't name a warrior who did the same thing, who isn't a current character since the wipe. These are not the kinds of details my mind really retains.)

...at lowbie ranks. Didn't kill a lot of people because I don't like preying on n00bs to pad my pk ratio like some people. I like to fight the toughest characters I can possibly face.

I've also killed people with a level 15 shapeshifter just using wands. I don't like doing it because frankly, shapeshifter is the only class I like to power because I want to know what forms I'll get.

But I really hate this attitude of "Prove it by showing me PBF's/facts/blahblahblah or I don't believe it".

Why don't you prove TO ME that lowbie mages suck? With PBF's and such.

I'll be waiting.

I do not have the logs of my lowbie invokers. That was very long ago. And Daevryn has more abilities to get logs proving his point than me, so I asked him. If its impossible its okay, let each one be at his own opinion.

But if you have any logs saved I'd like to see them. I always wish to learn something new about PK, since PK is why I play.

Just to be clear, 'the logs' that the game keeps aren't log board kind of logs and probably don't show the kind of information you would be interested in.

>Even though a voker can dish out major damage, a warrior with
>no vulnerability is not gonna lose 600 health in 2-3 rounds..
>That is high damage even for a hero.

Well, right. At hero hardly anyone has 0 spell save gear. At level 30 that's standard. At hero hardly anyone gets into a fight with low or no damage reduction. At 30 that's pretty standard.

The number of rounds it takes an invoker to kill someone, on average, goes dramatically up, not down as they near hero.

That being said, what's your warrior with no vulnerability? The average hero felar or fire warrior doesn't have a vulnerability to fire or cold respectively; almost all level 30 felar or fire warriors do. You could, of course, be a race that has no (useful) elemental vulnerabilities, and there are a number of those, but if you're not also a race that resist magic it can be ugly fast.

If you don't have DR and don't have a vulnerability, taking an oblit every round is really not that rare, and that's without even talking about iceshards.

My recent warriors have been of the human/halfie racial connection. I can see that a felar or arial may have more issues against a voker, but I can not see myself dying. I can not be bothered to check, but I dont think my warriors have died to a mage except a necromancer, a lucky hit when I was running near death or a gank.

It should be mentioned I do tend to have saves at level 30, in most cases protected or well protected.

Ive played tons of vokers, and ive given low level PK a try. While theoretically you can do OBLITS, and much easier on a vuln target, the reality ive seen is not that straight forward. Lowbie damage from mages tend to be very erratic, one round you do a decimate, the next you do a DEVESTATE.

If the melee enemy got any kind of lagging ability, it becomes MUCH worse.

-------
The extra stuff I posted above follows below.

Im a fairly competent player, but I can not produce even remotly the same results with a mage at those levels. I have tried, several times. The most balanced casting class ive played is the druid. I may even go as far as to call them overpowered from level 15-40, but balanced out in hero range. If you try to model mages after druids sort of.. atleast when it comes to defensive ability and when you get protections it should get MUCH more balanced.

Druids get 2 damage redux spells, the carapace thing and the protection from metals very early. They also get very nasty offensive abilities and shield block + parry. Things like thorn and fireseeds completly destroyed people in mid levels, and is easily nearly as damaging as invoker spells and moreso damaging than shifter forms etc. Mages get their damage reduction stuff much later, they only get parry and their offensive abilities is well.. stronger than a druids by a bit but not not nearly enaugh.

Oh and druids got a fair bit more health than a mage aswell.

Give mages the shield spell early and let them keep it up 24/7, give them some avoidance spell that either evade damage fairly regularly (perhaps implement it in pass door) or atleast reduce damage consistently on hits. Make the pass door thing in such a way that barrier nullify it. This way you increase mage strenght thoughout the ranks, aswell as give them a needed boost at hero if they dont have barrier.

I don't think I ever had a problem getting kills as a midbie, and even lowbie, invoker. But, I always played quite aggressively with that class in particular.

Again, have you any logs? I know you played Darascus, maybe some other mages, show us please?

No, I don't have logs of any of my characters.

I don't have to think its unplayably bad to think I'll have a lot better chances at hero. In my particular case I'll usually slug it out very conservatively but the "general player" will power level through whatever he perceives as his "fragile years".

Most mages will power level through the low ranks and (despite the IMHO dishonest responses here) it isn't because they aren't getting enough out of area exploring. It's because they rely on higher level skills to survive PVE & PVP scenarios. Same with some priests, bards, some thieves, etc.

Now that being said, I usually excel in those same ranks but disclaimer being that I usually pick on people whose combo doesn't lend itself well to that range. To give you an example, as a ranger in the mid thirties fighting a mixed group you can bet I'm ambushing the lowest HP guy and hoping to pull a cheap kill off before flee/camo.

Second edit: I'd also note that what it boils down to is the "if I engage X, what are my chances of surviving if things don't work out?" Classes where those odds are very low, people tend to avoid, obviously. For low level classes that have very weak hitpoints or lack lag protection (mages & etc) the amount of classes where that threshold is "unacceptably low" is a lot higher at level 20 than at level 51. A good example is a warrior - if I'm a rank 20 necro engaging a warrior I have very little margin for error but as a rank 40+ necro with barrier I can afford to miss the sleep and still probably get away. In the very low HP territory overspamming one command will get you killed - even if you have bash protection. That and not surviving trip from a random assassin long enough to flee/teleport away puts a lot of 'survival pressure' on leveling up.

Well, first off. If I power through the low ranks. Its because I feel my combo is weak, compared to other in pk foes. As, in. I'm a shifter, or a sub conjuration conjurer, a paladin, a thief, a bard.

Otherwise I'm pretty content to just enjoy the character as it goes.
But a few things that would make me slower to power rank.

Just.. a little more gold. Seriously. (That is, gold I can gather without the server having crashed recently)

Faster, but still shaman/druid/ranger/necro effected movement regen.
Seriously nothing kills my lowbie char more than running out of movement as I move between cities, or ranking areas.

PKing
-Create minor preps, cures, etc, that is effective at that level range that becomes less effective the higher level you get to having no effect. This I think I would help encourage more battles, that aren't ended instantly by something like double thrust, or even bash.

-A few more weapons and armors that have minor effects (I know some of this has done) that can be obtained by this level range, but the gear itself wouldn't be as vaulable to a hero level.

Exploring
-Someone further down had a great idea. An area explore for mid level characters. I'm sure a RP reason to not allow too low or too high level characters could be designed. Also, not penalizing exp or reducing it in this type of area could be a great way to encourage it.

Quest
-More, fun automated quest are always enjoyable, especially when it tells more lore of the game, or provide tools that can be useful.

-Maybe run some mid level quest. Imm Interactive quests are always fun.

RPing
-More over all interaction, via yourself or as a mob. Arena contest, and all sorts of things.

Just some random thoughts

Induct faster. Infact, give some kind of perk for getting inducted pre-20 pre 25. Give out Maran faster, Leader more midbies more often (Nexus is the only one I've seen do this regularly). I've typically expended 50-70 hours by the time I get to level 40. That should be plenty of time for you to tell if I'm going to get it or not. If I'm not, say so. Don't leave me in the dark. That's just plain annoying. Stop being dead beat moms and dads and give some feedback.

Give inners and outers more HP but do less physical melee damage so that you can participate more in raids. Make hero level centurions not completely tear the assholes out of non-paladin midbies.

Make it so level doesn't affect saves/liklihood of skills landing in PKs. Make the only advantage of level being more HP and more skills/spells/wands/better use of high level weapons.

Add more shield/aura potion/pills and a couple of scrolls. Spread them out and make it so you don't have to be level 40+ or non-good to get them. Make it so one or three heroes can't hog them all.

Make it so moves regenerate faster. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I don't like having to sleep 10 minutes just to go check the past. Put a buyable CHEAP refresh prep in towns that only refreshes you up to 30-40% so you can move but not flurry/lashes of the slave. Put a timer on it so you can't nuke shamanesque no move tactics. Make it rager friendly. It's kind of sad that you have to spend 30-60% of your login time sleeping and not playing.

nt

d

>Make it so moves regenerate faster. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF
>GOD. I don't like having to sleep 10 minutes just to go check
>the past. Put a buyable CHEAP refresh prep in towns that only
>refreshes you up to 30-40% so you can move but not
>flurry/lashes of the slave. Put a timer on it so you can't
>nuke shamanesque no move tactics. Make it rager friendly. It's
>kind of sad that you have to spend 30-60% of your login time
>sleeping and not playing.

Would you hate me if I said I honestly could not remember the last time I ran out of move with a character?

Yay, free moves from exploration!

As Daev said you get move bonus (which are also enhanced same as the exp depending on when you find the point) The seasoned traveller edge is also very cheap, and once you get it I don't think move is ever a problem again.

Some people hate to explore goblin village and galadon sewers in 100th time with their new char to get some mvs.

If I go explore I go for gear.

I was always a total healer-whore for getting refreshes because I absolutely despise resting to regain mv. It really is one of the most tedious and annoying parts of an otherwise great game.


I know some steps have been taken to alleviate this for lowbies, but it really seems to hurt in the 20-40 ranks, especially if you are trying to track people down.


I think I suggested this before, but I'll toss it out there again anyway: How about making movement regen work super-fast (like it does currently for the low ranks) at all times, EXCEPT when your adrenalin is going nuts from a PC battle? This would make anti-mv tactics that various classes have still be a viable option, while making life a lot less tedious.

>
>>Make it so moves regenerate faster. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF
>>GOD. I don't like having to sleep 10 minutes just to go
>check
>>the past. Put a buyable CHEAP refresh prep in towns that
>only
>>refreshes you up to 30-40% so you can move but not
>>flurry/lashes of the slave. Put a timer on it so you can't
>>nuke shamanesque no move tactics. Make it rager friendly.
>It's
>>kind of sad that you have to spend 30-60% of your login time
>>sleeping and not playing.
>
>Would you hate me if I said I honestly could not remember the
>last time I ran out of move with a character?
>
>Yay, free moves from exploration!

umm, ok, this is as far down as i've got in the thread - were you looking for feedback or opportunities to ####wave?

You might be more likely to get better info if you allow them to run with it somewhere.

I'm looking to hear what people suggest to change, but at the same time, if someone says "X is a struggle for me" I'd be remiss if I didn't say "X is not a struggle for me, and here's one thing I do differently than you probably do."

Another one might be bartering for refreshes.

Maybe not. But still, as a nonvillager I don't run out of moves either unless I'm lazy. It's somewhat more difficult as a goodie to get refreshables (things I can barter for refreshes with), but in the end I KNOW there are refresh preps you can buy in some cities (though I forget if the non-evil merchant one is worth a damn).

But if you are a rager and don't like to explore the same area for the 10th time (like myself) then you are somewhat screwed. You could give that moves refresh edge no explore xp requirements and that would fix it. It's there if you want it at that point and you don't have an excuse.

Also if you made the explore move refresh edge available for less explore xp or none it wouldn't offend me since I don't usually explore with my characters unless I have an edge I have a hankering for. I've seen every area on this game except Dis and beyond. Dammit all to hell if I didn't die at the freakin gates last time I went down there. But still, it's really hard to motivate me to explore it all again since I have real bad ADHD and a short attention span.

Seriously.

>Make it so moves regenerate faster. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF
>GOD. I don't like having to sleep 10 minutes just to go check
>the past. Put a buyable CHEAP refresh prep in towns that only
>refreshes you up to 30-40% so you can move but not
>flurry/lashes of the slave. Put a timer on it so you can't
>nuke shamanesque no move tactics. Make it rager friendly. It's
>kind of sad that you have to spend 30-60% of your login time
>sleeping and not playing.

The mud average time spent sleeping is 8-10%. This is data collected across many different players for many months. If you're spending 30-60% of your time sleeping you're doing something wrong.

The overall problem with movement was pretty much killed when we doubled regen for levels 1-10.

>The mud average time spent sleeping is 8-10%.

And to be clear, that's any sleeping, not just for move.

Maybe boosting it on a sliding scale all the way to hero would be an idea?

So at level 40 you get (51-40)/51 = 21% regen boost.

I rarely find it to be an issue at hero. The only times are when I'm hasted, plagued, or energy drain myself somehow. Or if I'm wording myself alot. Everything else gets taken care of by "heal refreshing" once or twice whenever I walk through a town. I guess this could be problematic for a non-outlander who's wanted all the time, or potentially ragers.

>The mud average time spent sleeping is 8-10%.

Yes, but if more people spent time at the lower levels trying to pk you might see this number increase a lot. In other words, there may be people that would be more inclined to spend more time at the lower levels if moves weren't as much of an issue as they are now.

I'm not saying that is necessarily the case, but it is an example of where these stats might not show the potential problems with movement regen because movement regen might affect how people are playing the game right now.


Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker


'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst. Or however you say Elite'
-Vynmylak

Moves are less of an issue now than they've almost ever been.

1. Barter.
2. Various regen items in the academy and elsewhere.
3. That one (cheap) edge whose name I can't remember.
4. Code changes to lowbie regen rates.
5. Bonus movement points from exploration.

I don't explore prehero because of exp-loss.

The duration of maledicts and spells.

They last far to long and burn through gold too fast.

I for one won't fight a character for a second time if I had to go hide and burn off 5 mins irl waiting to see again or if I do two rounds with the guy and I'm bleeding for 12.

Not fun.

Agreed, but only in the low/mid levels. At 51, there are enough preps and gold sources where you can just lay it on me and I'll fix it, other than the super ridiculous 100+ tick level 60 plagues and stuff. From PCs though, it's fine.

It's at levels 11 - 40 that I'll avoid certain people just because that while I think I'm over all stronger, I don't think I can seal the kill and don't want to deal with having to burn through a RL hour's worth of gold just to go through the song and dance with that person.

Dying aside, sometimes it's better to just not fight someone and spend the preps/gold on someone (or multiple someones) else than it is to burn it all playing tag with a necro, AP, shaman, etc., especially when (good) save vs. spell gear is hard to come by.

Personally I find myself solo ranking to master skills until about 20/25, then just ranking as quick as able. Basically doing what I can to have the least amount of time from 25-40. Then I tend to slow up and work on more skills and solo a few levels until it's time to hero.

My biggest reason for going through mid level as a whole quickly is usually cause certain classes are just meat versus others, where as at the hero ranks I think any class can compete with any class. Mid level you get annoying things like level sitting assassins working on assassinate, a-p/s looking for charges and much higher level low xp penalty classes that just shred you to pieces.


Pking:
I can't thing of a better system for pk ranges unfortunately, but fighting people with 9 levels on you can suck. 900/800 xp penalty classes just have a bad time of it in the mid ranks, and likewise they almost never have people of lower rank in their pk, so they don't really have many viable targets early on. I just find the differences between characters is far more pronounced in early mid ranks than it is at hero.

Exploring:
As has been said, people hate to lose exp, and so they don't take major risks for the reward. The only benefit of exploring earlier is enhanced exploration xp, but even at double, the risk is not worth the gain for the most part. I do like to explore and look at things more with a hero, because I can do so far more safely, and if I see a mob with perhaps an interesting item, I may be able to actually get it.

Rp'ing:
Well, that's just for players to work on, and its really a problem at all ranks more so than just mid. Imm incentives work to a degree, but there are too many players for the Imms to give us all constant attention. Low level Imm quests might be a good start, like putting a quest mob to kill in a fairly under visited area that might be difficult to fight unless they group, and maybe a little bit of a puzzle to solve it more so than go to X and kill random mob for 500 immxp.


Just an idea or two:
I think heralds could play a part in helping people get into all these aspects (though PK may be a touch harder), because they tend to be RP driven instead of PK driven. Maybe they can run a few more unofficial quests (not kill tiamat and the like, but something for mid ranks to do- and maybe they give their own rewards for it- like help with ranking/better gear etc.) Maybe ask them for knowledge, like if you can tell me "so and so" then in return you'll get "so and so" And you could tie it into exploration by maybe asking them about an obscure little thing in an area that might be slightly dangerous for them (linking it into the exploration thing)

I used Zannon (a horrible storm warrior) sort of that way, giving people gear if they brought me Flotinot's last cookie. People seemed to have fun looking for it, and really was not dangerous but may have gotten them to start interacting with other people for clues or really exploring a general area. And even a lot of vets had no idea where it was, cause they never had a reason to know. I can think of lots of things that are not really well known that could be used in such a fashion, and I think it can be fun for the hero and the mid level.

>Pking:
>I can't thing of a better system for pk ranges unfortunately,
>but fighting people with 9 levels on you can suck. 900/800 xp
>penalty classes just have a bad time of it in the mid ranks,
>and likewise they almost never have people of lower rank in
>their pk, so they don't really have many viable targets early
>on. I just find the differences between characters is far more
>pronounced in early mid ranks than it is at hero.

Here we may just disagree because I think that, for example, 900 penalty level 30 storm paladin is a pretty good match for level 39 evil human base. (If I'm the paladin, I almost always win that fight.) Ditto high penalty A-P or ranger.

In the case of a Paladin, sure, but there are plenty of classes (many with an xp penalty) for which being a race with a higher xp penalty doesn't really make them much stronger, and sometimes even weaker, in PK.

A lot of people are thinking of nothing but level 51 when they choose their race, in which case the low/mid levels are nothing but the shooting gallery they try to avoid danger through.

In these case, having the level 39 human in their range makes things to awful match up for them.

This makes sense if you're trying to make it more difficult and expensive for them to reach 51 where that power ceiling is higher, but if your goal is to get them to play and enjoy the low/mid ranks, it's not going to help.

Fine, in most instances the balance is probably there and the level is not much of a deciding factor, and usually the people doing mid level pk actually know how to. We're not all Daevrynesque with our skills/knowledge though (Kalisda may have been my only positive pk ratio character, if she even was one which I doubt), but I can see the point that there is enough balance between the races/classes that is not too much of a problem. I just can't say why people are not more involved in PK pre hero, for me it is because I am terrible at it, from 11 to 51. What I do know is how to survive, but that's about it. I do it slightly more at hero just cause I don't care as much about losing once I get into the mid forties.

I think it's a question more of why don't people at all levels get more involved in PK, even at hero lots of people don't fight. Character roles and such may be a factor since unless you are a certain role type you really don't have a reason to be killing everything under the sun. And given how big thera is, how easy it is for someone to teleport/recall, hunting people becomes more frustrating than anything probably, where as at hero maybe people just don't flee quite as quickly.

I'm a pretty passive observer here, but this is an interesting thread. One thing that seems to be reocurring - Daevryn, it seems like most of your counter arguments come down to: "When I play this class I don't have this problem, or I pwn people in this situation". The problem is that 99.99999999% of people are never going to be even in the same stratosphere of your CF competence, so unfortunately I'm not sure you're able to be unbiased (not your fault).

So while you may never run out of moves, or own people with your with your lvl 14 invoker, no one else except maybe 2 or 3 others that will ever play CF will have these same experiences, so I'm not sure that should influence your decisions on what to nerf.

Anyway, my $0.02.

>so I'm not sure that should influence your
>decisions on what to nerf.

It doesn't, necessarily. It's just part of the discussion.

Whether you balance a game so that it's fair for average players or for more advanced players is a recurring and interesting game design question, and for CF I think the right answer is always somewhere in between.

Edited to add:

Or, to put it another way, if the average shaman player thinks energy drain is useless trash (this is pretty much true) and the high-end shaman player sees energy drain as one of the key killing spells in his arsenel (maybe or maybe not true still today, but for the argument let's say it is), if I make energy drain better enough that the average player thinks it's really good, what happens with it in the expert player's hands?

These are the kinds of questions we ask ourselves as we juggle these things, and sometimes it's worth pointing out, hey, you think X is insurmountable, but have you factored Y into your assessments? Just to see if we're talking about the same things.

I want to have Energy Drain's babies.

I actually enjoy the mid levels more mechanically and usually hero level for the rp/immteraction/leaderspots/etc. Then again, I tend to enjoy playing things like druids/shamans which pre-40 are beastly. Once you hit 51 and people can gear for saves better and it becomes a pain in the ass to land a single supp pking is a hassle.

I also tend to try and monopolize the low level shield potions and good stone skin (to the point of Eshval calling me a prep-whore).

I tend to feel like there is nothing mechanically wrong with low/mid levels personally. I think it is more of a perception that needs adjustment. You have been saying for a long time that the game does not begin at hero and I tend to agree with you.

What I remember seeing is that people didn't really start playing their characters until they heroed. All they focused on was getting to 51 as fast as possible. Maybe it takes me on average 200-250+ hours to hit hero with my characters (even the ones that don't solo-level), but I tend to feel like my characters ended up more fleshed out and established as a presence than cf's average character.

In short, my input is: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. (What prompted you to start this pandora's box thread anyhow?)

As an aside, I haven't been around cf in about 2 years now but since Larcat sent me a message that the shaman revamp is actually in progress...here I am again.

>In short, my input is: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. (What
>prompted you to start this pandora's box thread anyhow?)

For me (like you, I think) the midlevels are the most fun part of the game. Usually, any character I hero is living on borrowed time.

Which made me wonder how everyone else felt about it and why.

>As an aside, I haven't been around cf in about 2 years now but
>since Larcat sent me a message that the shaman revamp is
>actually in progress...here I am again.

You might be waiting a while for it to be complete. There's still a lot of supps on my to-code list.

The fact that the revamp is actually a work in progress is enough for me.

And yes, the midlevels are the most fun. I went back and looked at my character list and it's always the same story.

Maybe I need a perception adjustment so that I could enjoy being a hero longer.

I haven't read any of the other comments yet, so I don't know if this has already been addressed. But, I kind of am having a tough time finding areas to explore that are worth the reward in the mid levels.

What I mean by this as I am looking for areas that offer good explore/obs exp but aren't rolling the dice on whether or not you'll survive it. Maybe I just don't have the right idea on exploring but I keep getting frustrated when I run a low character through a higher level area and come back and get zilch.

I know that explore exp is partially based on the risk the character takes. It seems to me that most aggressive mobs that add risk to an area kick the #### out of mid level characters pretty quickly.

Have you tried exploring level-appropriate areas as a low-midlevel character? Places that are a bit of a challenge but doable?

I have, but, apparently not well enough. An example is I went through the Mansion of Twilight as a low 20 character and looked around quite a bit. Checked out the aggro mobs there and didn't get a whole lot for doing it. I think I got more obs exp than explore exp. I just know I was kind of disappointed. I can't recall the exact amount of exp I got, but, it didn't seem all that worth my time.

Take the Basilica for example. I think if I remember the area is for lvls 30-51, but, if you run a 20 something character through there it doesn't seem like there is much of an explore exp reward for it. This particular area I haven't done this with, at least in a while, so I am kind of speculating. It just seems like since there is only 1 (I think) aggro mob there you won't see much of a exploring reward for it, despite being below the level of the area. Especially if you avoid that 1 aggro mob.

Is there any advice you can offer in this for this particular part of the game? Does killing mobs in the area help? Is using the level of the area compared to the level of your character a good measuring stick? How important are aggro mobs?

PK
========
Human level advantages peak too early, particularly for conjurers.

Revisit arial penalty, for the dex & evade changes have made this quite the popular choice. Alternatively, add more water/electrical weapons of quality so people can smack them around a bit.



Exploration
===========
Mages bemoan the sleek search and we warrior players cry a river on their behalf; what if the other classes had something similar? There could be not only weapons, but an entire array of nice gear for every slot, all with rot timers. At some point they too would be able to undergo something akin to the locate artifact quest.

I wouldn't mind having a sleek version of haste, either, as long as I'm dreaming. I don't keep a 'muter in my pocket.


Roleplay
===========
Immortal interaction - Invest time, even two seconds or a recho, with random low/mid level characters. A little sign that the gods are logged in and watching people other than cabal leaders can be a great positive influence on the game and inspires people to roleplay.

Similarly, when there are immortal hosted pk competitions, don't restrict it to just heroes. Other people want to be involved too.

Give Heralds exploration enhancements to their skillsets, maybe in a tiered fashion based upon their event holding. I envision skills & powers useful for group exploration of difficult areas might encourage people to play (and roleplay) quality Heralds who otherwise have avoided this great and complex cabal. Yes, Isildur, that means you.

>
>Give Heralds exploration enhancements to their skillsets,
>maybe in a tiered fashion based upon their event holding. I
>envision skills & powers useful for group exploration of
>difficult areas might encourage people to play (and roleplay)
>quality Heralds who otherwise have avoided this great and
>complex cabal. Yes, Isildur, that means you.

This just isn't what Herald is about, as far as I've been led to understand. Most Heralds are interested in exploration and the acquisition of knowledge so they can record it and expand on it, but that doesn't mean that they are all Indiana Jones.

Heralds don't need special powers specifically suited for making Hell and dragon trips easier, they just need people who are willing to play healers, bards, invokers, etc. Right now Herald is dead because it's Imms are all inactive and most serious explorers don't want to have the responsibility of having to organize and/or attend the typical "floofi" lame kind of Herald events that nobody but a tiny, inclusive niche of the player base finds to be fun.

That said, the kind of characters you're envisioning can exist without Herald. Roll a group-based explorer and sit in the Inn all day organizing trips. Besides not being able to load retardedly named shots of liquor and do colored area echos, you're pretty much there.

My rationale for the suggestion:
If Heralds are awarded with group exploration skills for hosting events, it will lead to more Inn events by Heralds who want those skills and more interaction between Heralds and non-Heralds who want to take advantage of this cabal's exploration assistance. Note that a Herald of any level can host an event, which means they could be accruing those skills at an age that precludes trips into the area explores.

A more diverse group of players in Heralds will also lead to fewer snuggle bunny fests, which is the short-sighted view held by the first-person shooter mentality that the other cabals cater to. This cabal needs new blood so it can shake the mudsex reputation that has been attributed to it.

And yes, anyone can make an explore character, but by tying it to Heralds there is a greater expectation of roleplay, which was what this post was all about.

I think the problem is a lot of people want to explore and in many cases, even RP, but they want absolutely nothing to do with herald events. At least not the typical herald events of late.

Basically, people seem to want "The Explorer Cabal", but I don't think that's what the Herald imms have in mind. We all like the benefits of Herald explorers, but nobody wants to take on the responsibilities that being a Herald includes, be it hosting events, contributing to the Lyceum in the form of academics, stories, poems, etc.

I think there are at least 2 active heralds right now, maybe 3. Hard to do much with that. I oppose any explore based cabal/bonuses outside of what already exists.

I don't want things made easier cause we get in a group with a herald instead of someone else. I like the current system and think heralds are generally fine as they are presently.

>Revisit arial penalty, for the dex & evade changes have made
>this quite the popular choice. Alternatively, add more
>water/electrical weapons of quality so people can smack them
>around a bit.

A handful of lightning-damage weapons that are available in the low-mid levels were added to existing areas within the last year or so; I may need to re-evaluate this and see if it was enough.

Three biggest reasons I level up:

- I want to play around with a specific skill or spell.
- I want to hero to get rid of the xp penalty. I tend to play 500 or more xp penalty characters and find myself blaming level differences in pk a lot.
- I want to kill someone and there's few online so I go level up instead. Hero tends to have the best pk range.

So changes would be:

- Lower the level requirement for skills.
- Change xp penalties.
- Grow the playerbase.

Hope this is helpful somehow.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker


'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst. Or however you say Elite'
-Vynmylak

Might be able to encourage people to do other things in the mid ranks by doing something like giving a bonus to observation, exploration, and quest xp (and/or quest rewards) if in a group. It would still be much, much slower than plowing through mobs to level, but maybe it would encourage exploration groups in the mid ranks.

Edited to add: Make it more worthwhile to explore in the mid-ranks. Why would I ever want to kill the titan dude on the Crystal Island unless I needed a (Magical) polearm? He's a sanc polearm spec that cons fairly low level. What's the benefit, either practical or RP-wise? Why should I attack that elder elf in the Vale if he's got a wand that makes him twice as hard as the ones without wands unless I really want that wand and the xp? Why fight the skeletons in the Crypt?

Another problem I have with group exploring is how rarely you find something worthwhile specific to your group. While it does make it the achievement better when you do come across that rare poison ingredient or a wand you can actually use (I've seen a lot more of these since my return), it could be neat to take a page from other games and add chests with random, instead of static, loot that could be useful for your character.

Maybe add some chests to level 25-35 areas that would likely require a group that give good rewards for you. For some, can set it up as a quest requiring killing Y number of X mobs, or big boss mob Z. Code it so each person can only get their specific item from the chest, but once it's from the chest it's normal. Maybe a poisoner thief would sometimes get a good poison ingredient or a +hp+dex hooded cloak or a good dagger. Maybe a warrior would randomly get a -svs cloak, a light weapon based on their spec, or a +dam bracelet.

I know some people say they hate randomness, but there's a biological reason the most popular games do it.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker


'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst. Or however you say Elite'
-Vynmylak

I asked a friend of mine who used to play this question and he said two things. The biggest reason he doesn't stay at the mid levels is con loss. It's as simple as that for him. During the course of doing stuff, he dies sometimes and he feels like he's gimping his character if he doesn't get hero with as much con as he can muster.

A second thing he said was it might be nice to have a posting in the Inn that lists some adventures or quests that groups in the mid levels can take up. Maybe have it change every now and then. This could be a nice solution to the problem I was outlining below.


>Edited to add: Make it more worthwhile to explore in the
>mid-ranks. Why would I ever want to kill the titan dude on the
>Crystal Island unless I needed a (Magical) polearm? He's a
>sanc polearm spec that cons fairly low level. What's the
>benefit, either practical or RP-wise? Why should I attack that
>elder elf in the Vale if he's got a wand that makes him twice
>as hard as the ones without wands unless I really want that
>wand and the xp? Why fight the skeletons in the Crypt?
>
>Another problem I have with group exploring is how rarely you
>find something worthwhile specific to your group. While it
>does make it the achievement better when you do come across
>that rare poison ingredient or a wand you can actually use
>(I've seen a lot more of these since my return), it could be
>neat to take a page from other games and add chests with
>random, instead of static, loot that could be useful for your
>character.
>
>Maybe add some chests to level 25-35 areas that would likely
>require a group that give good rewards for you. For some, can
>set it up as a quest requiring killing Y number of X mobs, or
>big boss mob Z. Code it so each person can only get their
>specific item from the chest, but once it's from the chest
>it's normal. Maybe a poisoner thief would sometimes get a good
>poison ingredient or a +hp+dex hooded cloak or a good dagger.
>Maybe a warrior would randomly get a -svs cloak, a light
>weapon based on their spec, or a +dam bracelet.
>
>I know some people say they hate randomness, but there's a
>biological reason the most popular games do it.
>
>Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker
>
>
>'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst.
>Or however you say Elite'
>-Vynmylak

This also causes me not to risk things as it's a tangible loss.

Never understood the need for it.

- expand pk ranges or reduce exp penalties for some builds

- integrate areas so that the where command reaches further for the more obscure or out of the way areas

- add some sort of tracking system to all classes so it can be discerned if someone within pk range has walked through the room in the past six ticks. Give it a bit of lag and higher mana consumption to track

- add more flashier enhancements to weapons and armors. It doesn't have to be high level spells but my magical flaming axe throwing out a low level 0 tick immolation or my helm giving clarity or some sort of +morale or my glowing circlet allowing me to scan further goes a long way in the attractiveness of the game

- encourage cabals to induct before level 25

- throw out more +100 exppad bonuses for roleplay

- be quicker to tattoo someone in the middle levels

- appoint leaders to cabals quicker, even if the char is in the 30s

- have guildmasters give ghost chars tips. If you just died in a pk to an a-p, walking into the guild will have the guildmaster send you a tell saying 'Hey, I've heard that there's this purple potion you can get in so-and-so area, it might help protect you against lightning bolts'. Or, 'Did you know they sell teleport potions in such-and-such? That might help you survive'. What a guildmaster tells you might even reference the killing blow, stuff like plague/poison, icicile, wrath, blunt. You know, the stuff that makes a corpse look more than just a mangled corpse. Guildmasters should help guilded members

nt

I find the reason I power through these is more pressure from other members of the Cabal. Also there seems to be a stigma with level sitting if you don't level up fast enough.

>I find the reason I power through these is more pressure from
>other members of the Cabal. Also there seems to be a stigma
>with level sitting if you don't level up fast enough.

Yeah, I wish we as a playerbase could just agree to not do that ####.

Somewhat related: Telling a lower level character that they need to level into your PK just never comes across as IC and RPed, and I may start punishing this when it isn't provoked by the lower level character being a d-bag first.

It's one thing to say, "Hey, I'm going to solo and/or level up slowly, do my thing, PK, etc. etc., and I'll hero when I want to."

It's another to to basically level up at the same rate as everyone else RIGHT UP UNTIL hero range and then squat there for a few weeks.

Most people can tell the difference between someone who simply enjoys taking it slow and enjoying every tier of level/group range and someone who really doesn't fit that bill until the very end when they simply want most of the rewards of being a hero (like grouping with them) but don't want to actually have to fight the tough opponents. Granted, there is nothing wrong with that, but most of us are smart enough to see the intent of the player and determine whether they're doing it because that's how they like to play or because they simply want the purely mechanical and quasi-OOC advantage gained by sitting in a very narrow XP range after basically powering right TO that range in the first place.

In short:

1) Based on a lot of time watching players, I disagree that most people can tell that difference, or at least, that most people care about that difference.

2) If you can group with heroes, you've had heroes in range for a few levels already.

3) Often there are pretty good reasons to stop at something like 40-41 for a while. For example, if I'm a warrior, maybe I don't want to hero with all my second spec skills at 63%.

4) If someone wants to hang at 40 for a while, so what? How does that make the game less fun for you?

>In short:
>
>1) Based on a lot of time watching players, I disagree that
>most people can tell that difference, or at least, that most
>people care about that difference.

*shrug* It seems obvious enough to me. I can understand enemies bitching about it, but I very rarely hear cabal chatter or gossip where allies are complaining about other allies doing this, and of course things are always skewed from the other side of the fence.

>2) If you can group with heroes, you've had heroes in range
>for a few levels already.

Based on XP penalties, this isn't always true, especially when you have a human-something level sitter avoiding tough guys with higher penalties.

>3) Often there are pretty good reasons to stop at something
>like 40-41 for a while. For example, if I'm a warrior, maybe
>I don't want to hero with all my second spec skills at 63%.

It doesn't take 3-4 weeks to get your second spec skills to 100%. I bet a warrior with average intelligence is probably going to have 2-3 of them pretty close just by ranking casually. This scenario is pretty easy to pick up on and distinguish between more lame behavior. I guess I don't have snoop though.

>4) If someone wants to hang at 40 for a while, so what? How
>does that make the game less fun for you?

No, which is why I don't mind when people do it and why I've never, ever requested or goaded someone into leveling faster. On the rare occasion I feel like someone is doing it PURELY for the sake of being opportunistic and padding their PK ratio while not having to defend against a very small but powerful handful of opponents, I bitch and moan about it to myself in my head.

>Based on XP penalties, this isn't always true, especially when
>you have a human-something level sitter avoiding tough guys
>with higher penalties.

Sure it is. Note that I didn't say you'll have all heroes in range, just some.

If you don't think there's a sacrifice even being, say, a level 44 human base, try it some time.

I've played plenty of humans in the 40-44 range, albeit not for long.

Perhaps it's because I'm referring almost exclusively to mages, but I really didn't feel any disadvantage whatsoever in being a human, other than as a transmuter.

I suppose with certain mage builds, especially if you're really serious about power ceilings and all, the tables would be turned. I would definitely agree that in other cases though, being a human has more pronounced disadvantages.

Even then though, the difference between 250 (arial, dwarf, etc.) and anything over 500, maybe even 500, is very noticeable.

Either way, I don't think you're wrong, I just think that in many cases, it isn't THAT a person is level sitting, it's how they're behaving and conducting themselves while they do it that upsets people, or maybe just me.

At the end of the day though, characters simply must be aware (IC) of the concept of levels in some abstracted form. Most of them spend around 1/3 of their lives working off the same basic paradigm of level and skill gains, so it makes sense that one character would understand that another character has it within their ability to simply say, "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z and then I'll have New Spell that helps everyone out" and encourage said character to take that course of action sooner rather than later.

4)
If he killed you on midranks, then you heroed and he is not, some people whine and bitch for not being able to avenge

If he is your buddy or cabalmate, he cant help you as effectively or distract enemies from hurting you in battle

Thats why people bitch too.

>4)
>If he killed you on midranks, then you heroed and he is not,
>some people whine and bitch for not being able to avenge

Eh. Maybe he should bitch at you for powering to hero instead of staying at level 30 where he could get revenge.

>If he is your buddy or cabalmate, he cant help you as
>effectively or distract enemies from hurting you in battle

Maybe, or maybe not. Counterexample:

Play Fort for a month and I guarantee you'll have at least one day where everyone on is in hero range and nobody can do #### about the level 30 fire empire sword who keeps taking the Codex back.

>Thats why people bitch too.

If being on the CF staff has taught me anything, it's that some people will find a reason to bitch no matter what. (e.g., I remember when full loots were basically standard and now every day I'll see someone cry for 20-30 minutes about dying in a one on one fight and losing a single piece of gear.)

nt

.

1) No area has the same "feel" with regards to exploration at the mid levels as most of the explore areas. About the closest they come are a handful of areas farmed for experience that just happen to be really, really well written by their authors. Having a couple areas that are passable in the 30s but still quite dangerous would be great, especially if there was more to them than just herd-murdering. While there are a couple uncommon and/or secluded places to level up and do a quest or two in the 30s (if you're buff), they just don't have the cool themes and modern mechanics of some of the stuff reserved for the big dogs. Obviously, since a 30s "explore area" would be as simple as walking though Aldevari and burninating everything when you're a hero, the concept falls apart. What might be fun is something akin to the dragon lairs for mid level characters, where the point is more about strategy and tactics than anything else, with a huge XP payout at the end for the "boss mob". Encourage people to band together in the mid levels for more than spamming skills on elves and arial prisoners. (I'm imaging something like the group quests but more involved and with a boss at the end.)

2) Expand the cabal system. There's been discussion on the forums before on the topic. However it might be done, make the cabal system more dynamic with regards to level than, "Bah, send the level 25 guy to retrieve because they don't have a level 25 guy right on. Now lets go do hero stuff, guys."

3) Making prepping, gold gathering, etc. easier. At 51, a lot of builds can get gold and preps pretty quickly: you take down one or two mobs and you've got enough gold for a few skirmishes worth of buyable preps. Again, a couple more mobs and you've got a battle or two worth of limited preps. In the mid levels, at least for me, being "prepped to the teeth" takes a lot more effort because I can't get a lot of the top notch preps and getting gold requires more effort (time). While most people don't bother with this kind of stuff in the mid levels, and it's certainly not necessary fur survival or even to be an effective killer, some people like it. If all the every day chores of being a PK-oriented player weren't (IMHO) more annoying in the mid levels than they are at hero, those players might choose to stay there longer versus moving into their comfort level zone as soon as their skills are perfected and they have a bad ass suit of equipment. I'm not sure I'm actually in favor of this, but (again, to me) it makes sense from the perspective of some players.

4) This is less relevant today, but way back in the glory days of CF when global quests were a little more common, they usually required being a hero to get involved in. The last things like this I remember is when some nasties from Hell were terrorizing Thera a couple years (or so?) back and the heroes pwnt them. While that kind of stuff give massive, global hard-ons in the first place, more times than not its restricted to hero (or close) level characters either because of the danger or just because people (imms and other heroes) tend to pay more attention to heroes than the little guys. Along the same lines as ST and Hell, I'd gladly drop a 1/3 of a con point or more and get my face eaten off my random demon lord from the pits of Hell or a crazed efreeti from the elemental plane of fire. Now dying to a feared swordsman just isn't as cool. More global quests/events in general would be awesome, but ones that are mid level friendly would be great too. Bachelor auctions and emo poetry readings don't count, BTW.

5) Why not... get rid of experience penalties. Yeah, they're there for a reason, but they're probably the greatest deterrent from exploring and PKing (in town!) there is until XP doesn't matter anymore. It would also make leveling more fun, because I think some groups would be more inclined to risk getting ballsy in areas they otherwise wouldn't dare trying to rank in. I can deal with losing 1/3 of a con because I tried to rank on some mobs way too early, it's the XP penalty (ie my limited playing time) that concerns me more.

6) Keep an eye on us. A lot of people blitz through the teens, 20s, and low 30s because they want to avoid a certain kind of player. The rager apps who use magic or the role-less, kill anything neutral guy or the "my-hero-friend-decked-me-out-in-full-midnight-and-hero-weapons" warrior, etc. all tend to disappear to either rage deletion or denial by a certain level range. This of course doesn't mean that douche bags don't hero or that every character sub 30 is a douche bag, only that the sub 30 level range is a sort of breeding ground or vulnerable zone to "griefers" and/or people who either don't have and stick to a role at all, or simply think that their intended role doesn't apply until they're older and in a cabal and on the stage, so to speak.

That's it for now.

But it would be nice to add some midlvl explore areas imo

Also, work on luring more players. To fill midranks with fresh cannon fodder!

I already enjoy the mid-levels (which I consider to be 15-35), but I think there are a couple things that would make it better.

1) Having something to do in cabals from level 11-25. For these levels it's hard to get in for various reasons and if you can get in, it's difficult to contribute. Before level 25 most classes can't go get the item back so they're of limited use. If you're lucky enough to get inducted in this range, you'll find pressure (maybe even just from yourself) to level up until you're at least powerful enough to retrieve unopposed. I don't have any ideas to help with this, but I'm sure we could have a discussion about it.

2) Level too damn fast. I find myself leveling naturally in this range every few sessions without even killing mobs! I like how players get xp in a variety of ways now, but in my opinion it's just too fast in these levels.

>2) Level too damn fast. I find myself leveling naturally in
>this range every few sessions without even killing mobs! I
>like how players get xp in a variety of ways now, but in my
>opinion it's just too fast in these levels.
>
>

If you think leveling up once every few sessions in the 15-35 range, even without trying, is too fast, you're probably a minority.

My problem tends to be that during my play times there are actually quite a few people on (relative to other times), but my WHO GROUP is still small enough where once you exclude the people of opposite alignment, RP restrictions, and all the folks who are too busy raiding, retrieving, PKing, practicing, etc., it's actually quite difficult to find a group.

I find myself having to rely more and more on soloing, observation/exploration, quests, etc., these days.

Even with my thieves. Yes, sometimes I am alone (USA night times, EU/RUS daily times) but mostly its not a problem for me

I agree that I'm currently in the minority here, but I think that's part of the point of this topic.

If you want to open up the appeal of this range and more people start enjoying it, then you'll need to curb the rate of xp you get. If some of what comes out of this discussion is that people start loving being level 20, for instance, then they may want to be it for more than a few hours.