Seems everyone has there opinion on many different things but when a char. in game sparks discussion across multiple forums ignoring the words that come up just shows why you are killing the MUD. Player base is down and people have made lots and lots of suggestions to bring people back. If you notice that every time someone comes back to CF (like myself after a number of years) things are just so jacked up compared to what they used to be. You call it improvement but in reality it has over complicated the whole game. Char assassination is not the intent and yes a giant sword can spam bash and kill a thief. That goes without saying but anyways back on track. The post was made to point out the abilities of the thief. If i did not put in Flaaayins names people would just spam the responses pointing him out. Seeing as he is the only trapper thief around.

Overall everyone, well mostly players not Imms, are throwing ideas out to bring people back to the game. the fact that I did not use my handle is so off point its funny. Do you even know who I am? No you dont so whats the point in calling me out? Again, goes to show how little the Imms really care about the the players that keep this game alive.

Oh, yes I would be happy if the Imm separated Rager powers away from spells. Am I wrong to think Ragers and Spells should not go together?

This whole thing feels like that 3 way conversation in "The Big Labowski" where everyone is talking about their own thing but too each other. I AM THE WALRUS!!

First, this post is essentially the same as your first.

The post was made to point out the abilities of the thief.

Actually, it was a gross exaggeration of the abilities of one particular thief build, omitting all of the constraints and drawbacks associated with it, and substituting hyperbole and conjecture.

No one can meaningfully debate the issues when you aren't clear on what issues you're talking about, or what the facts on the ground are. In the 12 lines of text you post here, you address player retention (an administrative concern), character assassination (an ethical concern), class balance for thieves (a mechanical concern), class balance for an unrelated warrior build, thematic appropriateness (an aesthetic concern), and meta-commentary about our forums.

Step back, calm down, and spell out what your concern is. I sure can't tell, and you're not going to get useful (positive or negative) feedback from anyone when you're posting in stream-of-consciousness rants.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Flaaayin has sparked the posts he is not intended to be the subject, so please step aside and quite involving him from now on. Sry I even used him as the example to begin with.

As to spelling out the complaints:

The very limited Immteraction in game has lead to the moving away from PVP. Now you must write a role and enter a contest to get rewarded. Once you win said contest you get nice buffs. All because of a story you wrote. The classes of the game get way out of balance when you start handing them so much. CF is a game of who can write the best role. What happened to who can be the best at PVP? You used to NEVER get buffs in game. cool titles and leader weapons were about it. Liches were the only class in game to have multiple class skills/spells. Call skills/spells what you want if it does the same thing it is the same thing. Wheres the diversity that I assume you where going for when creating the class changes?

Changing focus here but will compare:

Mages now have to visit and look at every area in the game to build points to get a spell in the HOPE! that they will find wands. This compares to the massive searching thieves do to find ingredients. Now a thief once found knows them for life, mages roll the dice every time. ITS NOT PVP WHEN ALL YOU DO IS PVE!! 100-200hrs searching areas is not fun.

So the most simple and straight forward point I can say is:

"put the MUD back like it was 10 years ago" simple...PVP focused...fun.

Last point - I remember when Voker shields where thought to be OP just because they did damage reduction and immunity. Now every tom, #### and jane can quaff a potion or eat a pill or hold an item and say "fruit snack!" and get reduction or immunity. WTF man WTF!

If you need more of me pointing out why the mud is dieing and ways to help bring it back let me know. But i'll beat a full paycheck you will just flame away and ignore the concerns of returning players. (hint: this is why no one comes back)

>CF is a game of who can write the best role. What happened to who can be the best at PVP?
Wouldn't it be counterintuitive to give more PvP advantage to players who are already better than others? Everyone can write a role, and this is one way for newbies to get some love too.

Now you must write a role and enter a contest to get rewarded.

Not remotely true. The vast majority of people who write a role get a limited amount of experience. To put it in perspective, it's very likely well under 1% of what they would need to hero, and roughly equal to 30 minutes ranking. The Edge point rewards are dilute in a similar fashion.

Many XP rewards go out to people with no role, or for participating in 'live' quests, etc. Additionally, there are a huge number of automated quests that offer similar rewards-- this infrastructure barely existed 10 years ago.

The contest awards go out to a couple of PCs per month. They're nice, but they certainly don't make or break a character. If someone's 10% tougher because they have a detailed role, I'm good with that. It incentivizes interestring characters, and is very effective at that.

The contests are very popular, and show no signs of slowing down. If "everyone" hated them, I'd predict otherwise. Plus, as another poster pointed out, they're egalitarian by nature-- anyone can write a role and win. It doesn't take years of experience.

"put the MUD back like it was 10 years ago" simple...PVP focused...fun.

The role command was around then as well. I certainly got rewards through it before and during 2001.

I remember when Voker shields where thought to be OP just because they did damage reduction and immunity. Now every tom, #### and jane can quaff a potion or eat a pill or hold an item and say "fruit snack!" and get reduction or immunity. WTF man WTF!

Again, it's hard to deal with hyperbole. Either deal in reality or accept that no one is going to take you seriously.

And if you're talking about actually obtaining invoker shields on a PC, the method you're likely thinking of goes back to 1996 or 1997, and is far from trivial to have. How many non-invoker PCs in the game can put up even 1 invoker shield?

You used to NEVER get buffs in game.

11 years ago I routinely ran around with ABS, (group) haste, and a backpack full of other stuff. 12-13 years ago I had access to all of that minus the barrier on a bard.

cool titles and leader weapons were about it.

This is blatantly backwards. Imm-granted rewards were both much stronger and less frequent in the game's early days. Stuff like the original wolverine form, Executioner's Grace, a certain lich-based spell, and similar rewards were incredibly powerful. What the staff wasn't able to do (due to a lack of coding infrastructure) was routinely give out small rewards-- experience points, Edge points, one point on a maximum stat, custom Edges, extra class abilities like thief skills or (balanced) shifter forms.

Right now, we have a system where a larger group of players get smaller, more balanced rewards. This actually moves away from the problem you're alleging.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

www.andysmithmusic.com/travelingMan.html

That's called rock and roll right there. So good.

You want to talk about insurmountable odds? Ask Nepenthe or Twist about how tough Dilamon was. That was the first and only character that actually produced some (albeit well-deserved) fear and franticness OOC.. I literally would get a quickened pulse when I saw her on the 'who PK' or 'where PK' .. but then again, I was 14 and it was my first character. I complained a lot, and then got over it... so take that for what it's worth.

Interestingly, she was (or rather, her bears were) the primary reason I never made hero.. I was stuck at Level 50 before eventually age-dying...

I think your whole argument is very strangely semantic based. It says "Spell" on your affects list, so you felt you had some actual weight behind your complaint. What if Valg simply changed this to read it as a skill? Nothing would have changed about the actual game balance or in-game affect, and yet your primary point is no longer valid...

N/T

1. I think you're backtracking. It seems that you made up this complaint about Villagers getting spells after it was pointed out to you that Flaaayin is a very unconventional build.

2. Villagers don't get spells. Ever.

3. A trapper thief with sufficient knowledge and experience (of which there has been a grand total of one <1>) is capable of producing some spell-like effects.

3a. This is not the same as giving a Villager (or a thief) spells. This means that if you are unlucky (not careful) you might stumble into a trap that can produce an effect such as faerie-fog, boneshatter, or disrupt organ. That's hardly the same as a thief walking up to you and hitting you with boneshatter and disrupt.

4. Any thief who wants to pull this off gives up things as basic as third attack.

5. There is a theme in CF of making concessions to garner great rewards. An invoker is a time sink. An AP must build a weapon. Villagers give up magic. Outlanders give up coin. A trapper thief is no different. He has sunk his time into figuring out what combinations of dragon #### and black truffles make what sort of trap. Same with poisoners. Homard was close with a poisoner named Nahiossi. That guy spent thousands and thousands of gold on ingredients. He had to spend a lot of time gathering cash. The reward is fear poison on his blade.

6. There are certain things in this game that you will feel are insurmountable. When I played Macaca I could not, could not kill Lirad. Thror gave me a task: Kill Lirad. When I did kill Lirad it felt really ####ing good. When you kill and full loot Flaaayin it will feel really, really good. Now figure out how to do it and stop whining about it.

3. A trapper thief with sufficient knowledge and experience (of which there has been a grand total of one (1)) is capable of producing some spell-like effects.

I'll add that this is true of any melee builds. The original poster is complaining about the ability to inflict blindness... it's easier to make a list of builds that can't blind you. Berserkers can paralyze, and mace specs can inflict assorted head trauma, but it would be silly to say we gave them both the Neurological Disruption and Sleep spells. Battle bards can make you nervous enough to foil concealment, but they aren't 'casting' Faerie Fog. The list goes on.

Otherwise, I can't tell what he's trying to get at. Maybe a trap accidentally leaves a 'Spell:' affect instead of a physical malady or skill. If it does, bug board it and it's an easy fix. The ability will still work the same, other than potentially losing the possibility of being removed (against design) by Dispel Magic and its cousins.

And if anyone thinks being an effective trapper is easy, they'll get more credit after they show us how easy it is. The class requires an above-average amount of forethought and planning, and it has a number of terrible matchups.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Thieves did just get revamped, right? Much like darn near every other class revamp in CF history, these revamps eventually needed to be corrected for balance because the players used the combo in ways the designers never imagined.

Poisoner effects seem to last pretty long for something that is very hard to cure, 32hrs+ is no exception.

Perhaps something that's gotten a bit under the radar?

Can say it's not, but really I imagine the poster got a little hell and was pissed off and wants to claim BS. That's fine. We all need to blow off a little steam now and again.

I will just say this.
Anything in this game. Anything you can think of. There is a counter to. You just have to take the time to do it and be ready for it. If you spend 20 hours gathering things, spend another 10 minutes so you have the things to deal with the thief. Be it with tactics/preps/allies. Whatever. There are lots of ways to deal with him. Hell, just avoid him. He's a villager. How often do you really think he is anywhere besides the standard villager loop?

But if you walk in to a fight that heavily favors him, or he catches you off guard, and he whoops you, don't blame him for using what abilities he has. If I walk down Eatern and some decked sword spec bashing fire giant bashes down my elf bard when I am completely unprepared, I can't blame the giant for my own stupidity, no matter how annoyed I am. I should have used the OP where command and gotten the hell out of there.

I would say in CF there is no character that you can't PK. The last char I can really think of that was insanely hard to handle was Ahtieli. And I think Ahtieli could have con lossed Flaaayin in the course of a few weeks. Considering he could do nothing to her. That would not make the lich OP, just OP against him.

come from the feeling that they can never get a fight that is not on their opponent's terms. I've certainly been frustrated by finally feeling I was winning a fight against a gnome only to have the little bastard shift into an airform mid-fight and fly away, then have him come back fully wanded and catch me with my pants down. Where people struggle with a trapper thief is that he could theoretically kill you without actually laying a finger on you, and the logs show how a trapper can cripple an entire group for an extended period of time, significantly altering (damaging?) raid/retrieval dynamics.

Listening to the changing hue and cry before and after this wonderful personality known as Flaayin, I would guess that either Flaayin had far more tolerance than his predecessors for the initial struggles of the build, or the path itself was quietly juiced up to make it more appealing to the masses.

I would not be surprised if after this experiment if things were adjusted, just as they were for poisoners after the great "suggest quaff powerword_kill" debacle.

...please spell the name right.

It's the Big Lebowski. You're out of your element here, Dirty. OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT!

yes yes your very smart...shut up.

quoted that one too. I find it fitting in your case.

f

Nt

Way beyond pacifism.