Since I'm hopelessly addicted to CF again (though not like the old days...but yeah), I was thinking about ways to make my characters better. They are usually quality, but very rarely a "notch-above" or Noteworthy/Legendary characters. So I started thinking about my CF flaws. And I started thinking about other CF players, and things I wished they did better (biggest example? Funnyone is pretty quality but he tends to make the same mistakes with his RP which makes him relatively easy to spot and often keeps him from getting rewarded).

So, here are things I wish I could be better at on CF, in descending order:

Play the character, not the game (as in, react how my character would, make decisions based on character decisions, instead of trying for a good ratio/good set of gear/etc). I tend to get really mad when I die because of my RP (no quaff recall because village, no cookie cutter build because of attempted in-depth outside-the-box-role, goodies sticking around to save others, etc). I get pissed when playerbase changes torpedo an idea I have (roll a character to fight gangs, pendulum shifts, now you're in a cabal that outnumbers everyone). I get mad because in CF, death has consequences, and it's often frustrating because I feel I gain no "actual" benefit from RPing in such ways. However, I've said MANY times that RPing your character correctly is its' own rewards, so I need to relax on this a LOT.

Less mob deaths. I'm always in way too big of a hurry to do most things, and I've had some epic mob deaths (I think one of my chars that only made it to 20ish died 5 times pre-5...who does that?). I may hold the record for most deaths 500 or less TNL. I always decide to push my luck with mobs (and players too, for that matter). With PK, there is at least a relatively tangible benefit. With mob-killing/exploring...not so much.

Enhance other's RP. I'm usually pretty in tune with my own RP and while I'm not the best, no one can ever accuse me of not RPing....at the same time though, I don't get others involved as much as I should.

Sticking out a (tough/bad/rough/unlucky) character that I want to delete. I've played over 5000 hrs on CF (at the least) but I've never Age-Died a character and only con-died 5, and one of those was pre-hero and less than 150 hrs. The longest character I ever had in terms of hours was Ghrim and he was only ~340.

Play more of the roles/char concepts I have on file. I'm just soo lazy and I don't want to ruin the concept by ####ing up the implementation.

1) I wish I could PK with any build. But it's simply just not the case. I've had 200 hour chars with 0-5 kills. It's hard to believe for me personally when I usually do 50+ on most chars, but it's just the reality of it. I don't know whether it's luck or skill of my enemies, but sometimes I'm just rolling through my range and sometimes I play a supposed killer build and just can't land KB on anyone. Most likely explanation is that my play style only caters to *something* but not *other things*, i.e. lack of skill. However, I've had successful mages and successful fighters of different classes and cabals, so can't quite pin it down.

2) I wish I could brush off ganks/full loots. I've learnt to do it IC, but I still steam inside OOC. It's just a game, but sometimes it's really, really hard to stay calm when I took a chance on 4 against 1 and got fulled. You know who you are, please stop doing crap like that.

3) Sometimes I become "bossy" when my char probably shouldn't be. Every now and again you just know what that healer/invoker/bard should do and you tell them. However, my char should probably not have that knowledge, thus bad RP. Let whatever you're doing fail and THEN tell them, if the char can have suggestions.

4) Do evil better. I probably don't come across as overly evil when I play evil. Very hard to do without being a jackass, which is one of my primary goals when playing. Some people manage to pull it off, however. Unfortunately, it's not me.

5) Do good better. I.e. die for no reason to let a newbie a chance to live, for example. Don't deride the whole Fort even though they deserve it. Doing much better at this I think, but still not there.

6) Do neutral better. Usually I would lean towards good too much. It's very hard to properly do NN. At least, that seems to be the case for me. Much easier in Nexus - what tips the veil is the enemy, but in other cabals, not so much. Need to think more on who to attack and when.

I wish I was better at remembering where room titles were (*).

Someone flees/teleports from me and dies; I locate the corpse and I know for a FACT that I pass that room all the time yet I still can't work out which area it is in. By the time I do work it out (that Market Square is in Galadon) it is way too late.

Which reminds me of a tell I got once when someone referred to market square as mrkt [].

* the same applies to preps. I'm always forgetting non-sleek related prep locations.

1. More nuanced PK.
When I'm playing <a certain card game, which the forum software will not allow in a post here> after a hand when someone asks why it went down the way it did I'm able to say things like "you didn't bet enough on the flop to push me off my draw" or "I knew I had you beat because you just called that guy preflop after straddling, so you clearly didn't have X or Y."

After a PK encounter I'm basically left thinking "I should have lagged" or "I should have fled," but that's the extent of it.

Most of you guys are all "After the failed flurry you need to use this skill or that skill." I'm largely unable to make this sort of assessment.

2. Less mob deaths for sure. 10 TNL and I'm at 15% health with mob at gushing? Time to use that skill that lags me for 4 rounds that I've practiced to 71%.

Just stop doing that.

3. Don't be afraid to play one of the two killer roles I have that I'm afraid I'll screw up and never be able to return to.

Note for Sam: Give yourself some more credit. I think your RP is stellar and you've put a few characters of mine in the sort of fantastically complex situations that are the reason I play this game.

Don't level so fast, don't expect to be able to win every fight (unless you're playing an A-P and I'm spooning you and you're paying close attention), don't get upset when you lose.

I wish I was better at guildsitting, ganging, and playing an alt when my range consists of nothing but hiding classes and air shifters.

Unless he's playing a stupid Imperial shapeshifter.

...and, as such, heroed quicker than all but my shifters amongst my characters.

I usually hero around 120-150 hrs, if not later.