The battlefield seems to be screwed (can't post for some reason) so I'm posting this here.

I thought I'd play this goofy character as part of an overall plan to work on getting good with APs, but what I've realized is that I just don't like this game as much as I think I do.

He was mostly a light-hearted character, meant to parody poor sports, and I hope that anyone I interacted with got that and found it funny rather than annoying. The goal was to have a character that it was fine to die with lots, but tonight was a wake up call. When you're losing the easiest matchups, like duergar AP vs random assassins and thieves it's time for a reality check.

And that's why I think I may finally be done with CF after 13+ years. It's a great game in many respects, but not for me anymore. I've played this game off and on for 13 years or so, and for most of that I just played RP characters. I used to have fun despite being terrible, but at some point that got old and I wanted to compete. In the past few years I've tried to play PK chars, and to find some recipe for success, but it's just not working. And reality says that if I'm this bad after this long, nothing is going to change.

Ultimately I've come to realize that CF is much more a game of tedium than I thought it was. Too much skill practice, too much explore grinding, too much wand finding, too much prep whoring. And above all to do well you need to play much more carefully and meticulously than is at all fun for me. For a long time I've been connecting to carrion fields, but trying to play the game as I wish it was, rather than as it is. And that's really a pretty stupid thing to do.

There are certain things I took at face value I never should have believed, like that skills don't matter or that gear doesn't matter. But I wanted that to be true, so I believed it for a long, long time. And I am a little bitter about that, but ultimately it's my fault for not playing the game as it is.

Will I play again? Who knows, maybe. I've considered quitting before, and have always avoided being one of those people who says they're quitting and quietly comes crawling back. So I won't making any promises to stay away forever, but right now I'm just not seeing it happening. Not unless the game changes, I change, or someone explains things in a way that somehow turns a lightbulb on.

So if I don't end up returning, then thanks for the years of fun, and I hope I've had a positive impact on other people's experience.

I've never really put much effort into PK though, only survival. Good luck with whatever you decide - and some day I'll finish my poem dedication to "The Littlest Baron". :)

n/t

This may be beside the point, but for the sake of discussion:

> When you're losing the easiest matchups, like duergar AP vs random assassins and thieves it's time for a reality check.

A duergar AP is certainly dangerous to a thief or assassin in a way most APs aren't because of their detect hidden, but I think it's a mistake to generalize that to "This is a match-up you should win at all levels."

I mean, sure, it's a pretty good match-up in some circumstances -- give me bloodlust, a moderate damroll, and maybe one wand or stoneskin up and I'm going to try to roll a thief or assassin as a duergar AP where I probably couldn't force a fight as human/d-elf/fire/etc. And, sure, duergar AP as the anchor of a gang is extremely dangerous to a thief or assassin in a way that a gang lacking a duergar summoner is not.

But, assuming I'm in a condition to fight as a thief or assassin, that's a fight that's not that scary to me at, say, 25-30ish. I have dodge, the AP doesn't, and that can count for a lot in straight melee. In fact, if I am in good shape for a fight (e.g., I'm not beat up from fighting someone else and I'm not at 50 move), I'm probably going to charge right at them if I see them and try to put the fear in them, so two days later when they pop onto Eastern Road and I am beat to hell with 38 move left, they think twice about jumping me.

If you were to decide you wanted to up your PK game, I think a stealth character might be a better way to go: it gives you the chance to run up to someone, to look at someone and get a read on their current situation, gear, preparedness, health, etc. and really think about whether you're in a position to beat them at that point or not. And if not, to think about what it would take. Maybe you think: this guy outgears me a bit, but if I wait for him to be hurt or throw protection on I should be able to win, or, I think I can beat this guy if I can just get one of those swords out of his hands, or, no I'm just completely outclassed, or, whatever.

I think a lot of the reasons you gave for not wanting to come back are the same reasons I haven't played anything for months. There IS a lot of tedium, skill/spell spamming, gear-dependent success, and time investment involved for this game. It's to the point where I *really* want to roll something up, but I know that if all I have is an hour to play, that's barely enough time to find people and get a ranking group started, let alone just enjoy the game. I think this game favors the patient and the time-abundant moreso than the oldtimers with considerably more responsibilities to deal with in life.

For a lot of people these don't matter. It depends on what you want out of the game. They matter to me because I enjoy pk, and if you want to be a successful (I loosely define this as 100 + pks per char) then yes you have to have nice gear, and you have to have your skills better than theirs.

Sometimes when I'm frustrated or had a bad experience (usually dying to someone I loathe) I will delete and roll up something for role-play purposes. Roll up something with no pk goals in mind and just sort of hang out and interact with people or explore new areas. Enpolads and the Siege Encampment seem like winners as far as being able to just walk around and look at things and word out of things get too sticky.

Another thing I do is play ragers to avoid having to worry overly about gear. Especially with Berserkers, you can just use the outfit command after a death and you are totally prepared to kill again as soon as you unghost if you know where a couple of weapons are.

So don't quit! Just change your perspective a little in your expectations of yourself and what you want to achieve.

Yeah, learning the ropes of PKnig after being focues on RP can be rough. What I've learned about going from bad PK to decent PK is two big things:

1: At hero range it's all about longevity. A char that might suck or be so so PK-wise early on at hero, will eventually grow on you. You'll learn how to handle that char in PK and you will become better and better.

This links closely with nr 2.

2: Assess you threats. When you logon and do "who pk" you need to assess all those threats on that list, for example your lvl 25 duergar AP sees a lvl 29 assassin on the PK-list:
What can happen in that fight? What cabal are they in? Have you fought them before? How did that go? Has anything changed since?

So, is he a villager? If yes, don't lead with sleep unless you're a high int race. Perhaps start with faceslash to get some bleeding? Get in a crippling strike? Or can you outmelee him right away? Just go for perma lag. What can he do to you? He can break your wrist, maladict you badly, blind you, poison you, throw and trip you, unless flying.
What alignment? Goodie? Then you have protect vs good which is great, if not, expect to take more damage. And gear... At low levels gear IS important. At hero, just to some extent, at hero gear helps, but doesn't make or break a char. I've PKed decently as a hero AP in ragesteel, I just have to be careful what fights to pick.

So, in essence threat assessment is vital. When you get good at it you can almost predict every single fight. And just avoid those that you know that means 90% certainty of death, and the rest, I always engage in the rest even if I know that the oponent will get away or I know that it means that I must flee. Because I don't want to be the guy that avoids every single fight I cannot win.

The best for me is always to combine RP and PK. It's a shame thuogh that you see exploring as a burden rather than a perk. I LOVE exploring, so much interesting things to see out there in items, descriptions, puzzels, quests etc. :)

I hope you come back though, I've always enjoyed your chars!

Nor will I go in search of equipment.

I get enough through gifting and PK.

The reason I don't explore is because I don't like exp penalties associated with MOB deaths and the reason I don't look for gear is it seems quasi OOC for me and it takes too much time when I am trying to minimize my skill learning and ranking.

He said he played for 13 years, so I'm sure he's seen it all before.