After having been gone from CF for a number of years I decided to give it one more try. In the past, the best I'd been able to do was a lvl 35 Gnome Transmuter before I utterly gave up (had zero ability to solo as EVERY SINGLE MOB bashes or uses blunt).

This time, I went for something a bit more soloable and still had 2 mob deaths by lvl 18. I didn't mind the con loss. I actually relish the idea of being mortal. I never really minded the looting of gear. I remebered my way around well enough that I could at least get something to kill mobs with fairly quickly. Besides, if you're good enough to kill someone, you deserve a reward. I looked forward to looting gear. But knowing just how far that xp loss would set me back in the PK range, I considered it hopeless. Needless to say, I deleted.

I tried another character. I was <400 points to level when I had a mob death. I was suddenly looking at over 5000 tnl... at lvl 8. I knew exactly what that meant. I was now a full level behind my contemporaries. Again, I deleted.

Unfortunately, the xp loss on death in CF is a punishment, not a setback, especially to those just learning the game or trying to discover new things and places. It puts them so far behind in early PK that they'll simply get slaughtered by the experienced players. Had it not been for xp loss on either of those, I'd still be playing.

I know it's come up over the years about xp loss on death and you imms are steadfast on this simply because... you made it through so everyone can... but I'd like to point out that MUD's are not gaining in popularity and not everyone today enjoys having their egos bruised. I don't mind a fair fight or even an unfair one when I know I at least have a chance. But xp loss tells me that the more times I die to my own noobness and attempts to learn, the worse the odds are for me in PK. This gives a massive advantage to those who know the game and can avoid stumbling into dragons, especially early on.

And yes, I know everyone says it's a learning curve. You die incessantly learning where those nasty mobs are and in the NEXT LIFE, you hopefully remember. In the meantime you just dropped 2 full levels compared to those that can PK you and avoid those deaths. Not only are you a bumbling noob but you just painted a huge bullseye on your back. I admire the tenacity of those masochistic few of you who have been there and back again. I guess I'm not one.

I know it's sad and I suck and I'm giving up on something that's amazing, but I'd rather part ways and take that loss than have to endure utter embarrassment on the log boards because I had too many xp deaths from being too much a noob.

Somewhat related... just last night I sat and watched a Necro in Galadon starve himself to death repeatedly. I've seen logs of him and I knew before I even met him that he was still fairly new to the game. I was impressed by how far he'd made it as a DE and would have given my left nut to have his character, but I felt sorry for him when I saw him utterly give up. I knew exactly how he felt.

Hey, welcome back! :) There are a lot of positive things about the game, and I'm glad Ysal, Mendos, and others answered your points helpfully.

But, this idea is so important, I really want to stress it, not just for the original poster but for anyone else reading. Characters do not fall behind in pk range when they die.

If a death is due to pk, there is no loss of experience. If a death is due to mob death, your pk range resets with the experience penalty. There is never a situation where a death and earning more experience results in a pk range disadvantage.

Death happens a lot in Carrion Fields, and there are disadvantages in terms of losing momentum and accumulated items -- but is it any different from dying in a video or arcade game and starting over? :)

The important thing is to use defeat as an opportunity to strengthen your character's beliefs and personality -- whatever they may be. Remember this is really a role playing game. It's rarely fun unless your primary focus is to create the story of a fully fleshed out character who reacts to unexpected events in an interesting way that evolves.

Try not to get weighed down by setbacks -- that would be like being mad your character on stage in Hamlet got a rapier through his belly. It's difficult to adhere to 100% for anyone, but the more one thinks of anything in the game as just a prop for roleplay, the less frustrating and more fun it becomes.

Writing that story, as you mentioned, is what I hope you can find to be part of the true appeal and challenge of CF.



Good luck!

learning not get bent about dying is the one thing that finally made this game fun. Trust me I am king of mobdying at like say 18xpTNL (just like I did the other day!) and if there is ever a PK'd corpse full of preps that weren't used, hell thats probably me too.
I'll echo Mendos and say find something that binds your character and gives it purpose. If its PK then go all out on it, take chances USE those preps. If its RP then throw yourself into it, sometimes I do this too much, I had an erratic, mentally unbalanced char once, and after playing them for a 3 hour session and found myself actually doing the nervous twitching and lip biting emotes in RL. Trust me when you truly RP and not just superficial do it so you can do the powergamey stuff, you will not want to hit delete delete and you will get so much more from this game.

Mobdeaths, gear loss, they are all recoverable. Even Con loss, for a well RP char is pretty easy to survive as we are Far more likely to give a conquest to those players. Anyone who up and deletes because of a couple of mobdeaths, or loosing those strange bracers, just isn't invested in their char. Invest yourself and you will get so much more out of it.

I find gear all the time so replacing that is more of a time consuming nuisance than anything.

And again, the con loss I actually appreciate from the mortality aspect. No one person can perpetually dominate the game (as is the case in most pvp mmo's)

And I don't suck horribly at PK. I keep my cool, don't lag myself too bad and if I don't win, I can usually escape. I don't know where many preps are but I do know at least one scroll that gets me out of trouble. And as risky as it is, teleport has become a close ally with the scroll following close behind.

What I've always seen, and I guess it's my imagination, was con deaths leading to horrid pk ranges.

Since I'm being told this is NOT the case... I've thrown my had back into the ring and will this time, have MUCH less need to delete when I get p.o.'ed at a mob death.

Thanks to everyone for clarifying. I feel a lot better about trying again.

One thing I've learnt is that there will be times when everything seems crap, but 5 hours later things turn back in your favour. Things seem a lot worse than they actually are at the bad moments.

I also came back after many years away and felt a bit clueless. What you need is an in-game mentor. I think I paid an experienced necro a large amount of gold to take me (a shapeshifter at the time) on in an apprentice/mentor role. I always called him 'preceptor', 'teacher' or something like that. If you play a good char or one that tends to make friends, this is easier and will not require gold. But I've found that more than a few evil chars are looking for a reason in-char not to have to be a jerk to everyone all the time, cause that can get old.

Find someone who knows more than you (obviously), is on frequently when you are, understands what you're looking for in the relationship and is patient. A lot of people like to help others and get some respect for their knowledge. You can make it into a good RP angle for good and evil (with some payment, or underling RP). And you don't have to limit yourself to one depending on how you do it.

I would not be near where I am now without having done that.

First, I think the best thing you could do is just come to terms with the fact that you're going to die a lot on CF. Roll a character with a plan to con die. Turn the death into a fun learning experience and not a frustration.

The main thing I want to point out though is that someone starving and dying over and over in Galadon is the opposite of a newbie. We have things put in place which will void you to a room where you can't die of hunger or thirst if you don't enter commands for a certain amount of time. You'll auto log there after a bit of time. Unless you were already hungry/thirsty and very low on hps, you aren't going to starve to death during this afk time, and if you do it's very likely your corpse will decay directly to you while you're in the void.

This is meant to protect newbies. What it doesn't protect from is someone who has a where trigger and an auto-log script and isn't at their keyboard. Because he was technically entering a command every few ticks, he didn't void out. Sometimes we'll catch these and pull those people to the realm so they stop wasting all of their con, and that did happen in this case eventually, but especially if it happens in the middle of the night it really is on the person involved. We strongly discourage these kinds of triggers.

Oh, after trying to talk to him I realized that a tick timer was probably involved. But it also looked quite intentional and if anyone were going to con-die that way, his race/class combo would be one where frustrations might lead me to that end.

Yeah this is pretty well it. Unfortunate, but i chose to use a where timer and unfortunately for me I walked away to tend to a little girl and forgot i was logged in. I appreciate the imms pulling me away when they did, but it was pretty crushing even then. But part of the risk you take using a timer like that.

Not general ones.

For example, I keep getting bashed as a gnome muter and can't cope with the blunt vuln. Is there anything that helps with this?

Yes: you can reduce to make yourself unbashable by almost all mobs, and you have a spell (calcify?) that helps with the vuln to blunt. Also, if you speed yourself up as much as possible and wield a staff you will melee pretty well compared to using an exotic, say.

First off, welcome back, and sorry for your misgivings about the game. I doubt your experiences are completely unique.

I spent many years as a serial reroller myself and always seemed to get stuck in character limbo around level 35. Over the years I realised two things with respect to CF:

- This game rewards tenacity: I have learned more just through sticking with a particular character through the rough patches, than I ever did by deleting and rerolling.

- It can be masochistic: at times it is an emotional rollercoaster; you have a particularly tough session and end up going through two packs of cigarettes, or grinding your teeth. These are the proverbial "smash the keyboard" moments. In this kind of situation just quit out, go do something else for a while. When you come back to the game a while later, if the game still isn't enjoyable, just delete and come back fresh later.

- Find a hook which: a) is 100% within your personal control. b) doesn't revolve around your personal skill. I would suggest role play, or exploration here. You can do both of these regardless of any kind of mechanical advantages/disadvantages and they do not rely on anything else.

- Get out of your comfort zone: Play something entirely new class/build wise. Play a role you normally would not take on. Maybe pick a bunch of flaws, accept you will be a meatshield, and just run with it. Not having to worry about gear or having a competitive mindset can be liberating. Also, at the risk of plugging the time-honored cliche, the game does not start at 51*.

- Try to improve the game for other players. Interact. Roleplay. If they have a character plot, add something fun into the mix.

- Set some achievable and realistic personal goals. For instance if you are playing an assassin for the first time- "I want to hit level 35. I want at least 1 PK by assassinate."

- Finally: if the game is still not fun, maybe consider that it just isn't for you? CF should be not be a chore. You are not obligated to play. No one is going to get on your case if you choose to leave. It's your individual right to "vote with your feet" a go find greener pastures, if you have deep-rooted philosophical differences with how the game is structured.

*May a certain Imperial Imm who typically tears through my characters like a hot-knife through butter take note ;)

The perceived negatives of the game have been made abundant by a lot of players over the years. You mention:

"I know it's sad and I suck and I'm giving up on something that's amazing"

Do you mind if I ask what positives you see in the game?

Also just as one individual to another: relax about logs chief. I probably have more stupid logs of me getting bashed down and/or steamrolled in my history than 90% of the players. It really doesn't matter. I personally respect people who can pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get back into the mix with integrity way more than I respect a positive kill count.

1. A depth not found in any MMO.
2. I'm 50 years old, the appeal of a text based game has been with me since Zork.
3. Mortality! In MMO's death is an inconvenience. Here, it has permanence. My own mortality is becoming more apparent every day that I wake up. It's nice to find a game that realizes that you won't play it forever.
4. True escapism that you're a part of. If this is a book, you write it, not read it.
5. Diversity. Take a thief for example. In any mmo, a thief is defined by his gear and minor choices in path. Here, he may plant a poison canteen on you and wait for you to fall over dead or simply steal your every last possession.
6. A chance to make your mark in a game. I still remember from years ago a gnome warrior hero who wouldn't do the 'where' command unless he was wearing glasses.

There are MANY things that I like the idea of with CF. The problem is, those I can't stomach are driving my decisions.

Sometimes the positives get lost on us because negatives really take the fore of any discussion (as they probably should in any self-respecting product.) Either way we have to know our strengths and weaknesses respectively.

See my additional message regarding EXP penalties now. They don't operate as they used to many years ago.

I find that #4 is often what keeps me coming back. The level of immersion in CF is incomparable to any MMO, and surpasses many other RPGs in general.

"I don't mind a fair fight or even an unfair one when I know I at least have a chance. But xp loss tells me that the more times I die to my own noobness and attempts to learn, the worse the odds are for me in PK. This gives a massive advantage to those who know the game and can avoid stumbling into dragons, especially early on."

I don't think you realize that this was toned down many years ago?

From "help death":

"When you die, your experience will reset to the amount needed for the current level plus (100 multiplied by your level). Multiple deaths will only reset that value, not add on top of the amount needed as they used to. Deaths to other players are exempt from the experience penalty."

So experience penalties are no longer cumulative? They are fixed by level/experience, hence they do not severely disadvantage you in PK.

So I'm hearing. I recall the old way of xp deaths just piling up and getting so far behind it seemed you'd never catch up. And I recall it being changed at least once to limit that.

IF... an xp death really has NO effect on your PK range then THAT will make a huge difference in my decision to keep playing. I know in the past it was somehow based on the total xp you had accumulated + a limit in level range.

My biggest fear is that I have so many stupid noob moments that I become nothing but a target in PVP. Looking over your shoulder is just a good habit to have in CF. Being incessantly chased around the map no matter where you hide because your level is so much lower than theirs is something entirely different. (Unless I chose to be that much lower as a result of race/class decisions. Then it's my own stupid fault and not an accident.)

-Prep bag: Find some basic preps for escape (Return/Teleport potions.) Flee/quaff is your friend. There are free variants of both, especially teleports which can be gathered in a pinch (ask an ally in character). You can also buy these from shops.

Carry flight potions to avoid being tripped. You will be looking at shops for these.

Detect invis is also very handy if not built into your class.

I will reiterate: Flee/quaff is your friend.

- Stealth classes/picking fights: Stealth classes (ranger, assassin, thief) can get the drop on people. It is useful for picking fights. If you are non-stealth and someone surprises you, just flee unless you are certain you can take them down. Don't be a hero. Come back and fight on your terms.

- Bear in mind that PK in CF is a hands-on thing that you learn through repeated attempts. If you are not actively attempting to PK other people, you will not learn. Logging fights for yourself and revisiting them tactically will help. Ask around on forums and people are happy to give you critique and suggested tactics which might work in your favor.

- "Whe" spam. Self-explanatory. Also keep track of "who" regularly and see if any enemies log on. Even most stealth characters will reveal themselves on "who pk" now and again*. If it is someone particularly stealthy, try to find an ally who can scout them out.

I noticed that people were giving you a hard time on the other thread. Don't let it put you off as it is mostly a knee-jerk reaction to people who mope (it happens a lot). I get it, by the way: it is difficult to get back in the mix. I would have a tough time getting back in a boxing ring after a decade out of the sport. Or even going back to the gym after a few years of vegetating. Just remember that the toughest part is in the beginning and it will get incrementally easier if you stick with it.

CF has been toned down in difficulty quite a bit since you last played (most likely). There are also less players, which makes things easier on the PK front. Having said that, you might have a harder time finding groups.

You are going to die in the beginning. A lot. Don't wring your hands over it. It isn't you specifically, it is just part of the game. Everyone dies including very skilled players. Mob deaths, PK deaths, death traps, the sooner you accept it is just part of the game the sooner you can focus on real personal progression. I think I logged on (as Mendos) after a few beers and managed to run into the same death trap ~4 times in one session. (If that isn't the definition of stupid, I don't know what is?)

*Other than players like Tjok (past ranger) who managed to go about 4 hours without showing up on who, ambush me for an insta-kill and then disappear back into camouflage like a ghost.

If you ever spot them on "who", consider not hanging around in places there they can avoid your notice.

.

They have the best pk ranges level wise because the race gets 0 xp penalty. You'll find a lot more people in your pk range under your level than over it because ranges I believe are based on a % of total xp.

Also, Pretty sure I've seen it before where a mob death pushed me out of someone's pk range.

"Also, Pretty sure I've seen it before where a mob death pushed me out of someone's pk range."

Correct. This is because your range will scale down slightly based on the penalty, which in turn is a fixed percentage of your total experience.