So the big debate on dios is about whether or not lag (specifically throw/gc) is bugged somehow. Can you guys please confirm whether or not face kick ground control has been changed intentionally? It no longer seemes to perma lag.

If you didn't change it would that imply a bug someplace?

I was under the impression that you only get the extra lag from ground control when you get the echo about knocking the wind out of them.

I would still lay money that no-one just up and decided ground
control suddenly needed changing after like...20 years.

That said, the mysterious "lag bug" that appears to exist (assuming
undoctored logs, then yes there's weird stuff happening), but has
been unable to be reproduced reliably to be able to bug check, and
therefore I don't think anything was ever tracked down may certainly
be a culprit.


Biggest thing that's always super useful is some method to reliably
reproduce the occurrences, therefore pinpointing the cause of the
problem. I know myself (and others) have spent time trying to
contemplate and test possible commonalities, but had little luck.

Didn’t someone just up and decide that druids can no longer transmute, healers don’t need fly, muters don’t need locate? Just saying.

This change was actually much-discussed internally, and said changes
came as a response to the (CONSTANTLY requested) change of removing
empowerment as a requirement to priestly classes. Yes, I am aware of
your response that any *real* priest will still "need" to be
empowered, but in reality you don't have to be. Given the potential
for priests to now simply exist without specific Immortal oversight,
the classes were throttled back slightly in other ways.

It was also very clearly announced at the following post:

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=64650&mesg_id=64650&listing_type=search


And players wonder why we don't simply change the game for every Tom,
####, & Harry with a good idea. We're tired of having to meet our
Imm! Make it so we don't need empowerment! (After long, long, long
thinking otherwise, staff decides to go forward) WTF??? How dare
you not let the six druids a year not change metal to armor??!?

I just really wish druids still had transmute metal to wood. Fly is easy enough to get, muters can ask someone else to locate for them, but transmute metal to wood can only be found one place as far as I'm aware, and you almost never see that, just because of the difficulty to get it.

I believe the topic stemmed from years and years ago where commentary
began of watching rogues running around in full glowing, clanking
platemail, mages in battle armor, etc., and how ridiculous it all
seemed. Over the years, there's been a slow push to provide reasons
and incentives for characters to actually dress the part as well.

Various armor use skills appropriate to class, a push in object
design to have stats appropriate for the items, priests and blessed
weapons, etc. The transmute change was more of a "suitable time for
the change" than much else. What point is there to the restriction
that druids cannot wear metal, if it has absolutely zero practical
impact on the game? You *might* blow up an item, have to regather
it, and after edge introduction, a lot of times that chance was 0%.

Admittedly, druids now truly have the most restrictive armor choices,
but aside from perhaps the absolute top-tier gear, there's still
plenty of options. My biggest frustration is that anything good (and
often *needed*) for a druid is also useful for many other classes.
Trying to develop gear that'd be druid-interesting that would remain
available without simply artificially flagging it druid-only is
where I find the challenge.

Perhaps adding some other form of transmute metal to wood, I think the most fair way being a scroll. Maybe make it limited and fairly difficult to gather, so it's not super common, but actually help alleviate some of the issues of gearing the druid.

Something easier than the current way to get it, but hard enough so it's not extremely common. Druids would have a reason to rely on say, a ranger or bard or something to do it for them, as well. Just like savage rangers used to rely on druids to transmute for them.

Just a simple thought, anyway.

There is such a scroll already. I don't think it works though.

Which as far as I understand is super hard to even get into.

Mostly due to an unlikeliness of adding something which doesn't come
across as the "right" solution, at least to me.

The trouble I see with this "fix", is that I don't think it really
"solves" the root problem. Secondly, as I've certainly seen with
prep items...limited preps don't work in quite the same way as
limited items. Limited gear is balanced by the rarity and idea that
only a few people will have the "bonus" of the gear, and you kill
them and take it away. Limited preps work differently, because it's
not really a "finite" number of them. Instead of only being able to
use the item occasionally, what I tend to see is that a few very
number of people use the items, regather them as soon as possible
afterwards (in which they have the best information as to when this
item will repop), and repeat - therefore in practice having access
to this "rare" item near indefinitely.

I firmly believe that unless you make this item something like...HLK
or Dragon Lair challenging, the same process of simply repeat killing
to gather what's needed will happen - at least at hero levels,
certainly.

My second reason for disliking this idea is that is continues to
simply expand the gap between new player and veteran, and/or the
"game only begins at hero" perspective. I don't think either
benefits the game. I do like the PC-interaction-required
involvement, though. If *anything* along these lines were
implemented, I think I'd almost prefer a long-timer repeatable
quest where a druid does something appropriately nature-related,
significantly appropriate RP-wise (like Ragers and Veil), and
then give the item to be changed to an NPC to work their magic.
But that's just my idea.

However, this is all being based on the idea that druids *need* to
be able to transmute gear. If we're problem-solving this
effectively, the question needs to be asked - what truly is the
root problem that exists that requires transmute metal to wood to
solve?

It can't be need for non-metal gear - there's plenty of that
around. My only assumption is that it's a perceived lack of top-
tier druid-usable gear. If it's *specific* gear problems like
"There aren't any useful druid-friendly boots around", then I tend
to feel that's more appropriately solvable by adding reasonable
non-metal boots around. In personal experience, belts are always
the weird one. Druid or not, it's belts that I'm always like
"meh, this'll do, since I can't think of anything really more
useful".

The gear disparity for Druid seems much higher than anything else, really. In my opinion, to add enough gear for Druids to make gearing them not significantly harder than anything else would require a decent amount of extra word. Unless the next heroimm is focusing an area with gear specifically created to help Druid's, it just seems like a large undertaking, something that rarely seems to happen these days.

Would it be the ideal solution? Likely and possibly. But it does require someone to do all that work, which seems to be a large issue at the moment, as least from our non-imm perspective. You all have lives and jobs, and you volunteer, time is limited, understood. And everyone here would rather do the things they find fun. I'm not blaming anyone, everything is understandable.

From my perspective, it's hard to imagine that as the solution that should instantly be brought to bear when it honestly seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Your move, sir. I'm enjoying this discussion.

Adding objects into the game is among the most minimal effort, least
high-level-Imm intensive "projects" in the game. So long as the
writer is skilled enough that the IMP doesn't have to spend their
time reviewing and fixing the corrections.

This relates to my similar post in this thread asking what the
expectations of "minimal", "acceptable", and "preferred" gear is.
I suspect there's a reasonable likelihood that player and Immortal
belief of those ranges differ, but if it exposes areas in which there
is a deficiency, it's not an outrageous modification.

You don't me to make an outlander ranger, felar, and get those claw extensions. That's the real victim here.

But seriously, I would love to see more non-metal options for armor/weapons. Both for druids AND savage rangers.

Ugh, gearing a druid is easy once you are past the low ranks. The problem comes that you complete your set and have nothing to pk for, gearwise.

Centaur gear was worse than druids (much less centaur druids!). And yet, Whildur just authored a ton of new gear choices for centaurs. So it is not out of the possibility to assign a new hero Imm to craft a druid enclave (Grove rewrite anyone?).

That said, I am saddened that best opportunity for that was the ancient stones in the past plains... But that was put in before this change so wasn't Nely (I think this was hers) wasn't able to be reactive to the change.

Your turn. Dont think it's going to happen? Hero Imm and make it happen.

Edited to fix qwerty keyboard typing.

I struggle to think of good unlimited HP rings, for example. Most go-to items are metal and most top of the line items are metal too. I'm at a loss how to dress a druid past the (still-kinda-obscure) +8hp items. There isn't enough non-metal in the game IMHO. And yeah, they can gather goblin general stuff, but it's useless to them. Druids need hp/saves/stats and I can't think of a good unlimited set at hero, let alone at 20. Nevermind the frustration of not being able use any of the stuff looted from anyone.

>I struggle to think of good unlimited HP rings, for example.
>Most go-to items are metal and most top of the line items are
>metal too. I'm at a loss how to dress a druid past the
>(still-kinda-obscure) +8hp items. There isn't enough non-metal
>in the game IMHO. And yeah, they can gather goblin general
>stuff, but it's useless to them. Druids need hp/saves/stats
>and I can't think of a good unlimited set at hero, let alone
>at 20. Nevermind the frustration of not being able use any of
>the stuff looted from anyone.

I started making a list of reasonable regear stuff from the item
search (by definition, just using non-limited gear), and quit once
I realized what *I* felt my list consisted of was getting absurdly
large with just 2-3 gear slots of options.

As such, I tend to have to assume that our definition of "acceptable"
regear must differ significantly? What's your belief of what's
reasonable to get back on your feet with? Personally, with my two
hero (admittedly transmute days) druids, I generally looked for hp,
saves, maybe mana, damroll, or str if it was convenient. What need
does a druid have for int, wis, dex, con, chr? They don't dodge,
none of the other stats are direly combat-relative, and my only
concern for str was making certain I didn't drop my weapon for
parry. Damroll is just a convenient "Why not", if it was available,
but I don't really see a specific need for druids besides hp, saves,
and maybe mana. Though I'm perfectly willing to admit my druids were
no Lilyth or Amoras. I still felt I performed suitably acceptably
well. And hp/mana is nicely provided by outfit gear even. So, what
range are you looking at? My regear stuff is probably grabbing
+10ish (preferably +15/20)hp, and maybe grab 2-3 high SvS items
just to have a little backing.

Agree about the frustration, but you can easily build a good set because great druid great is easy to get. Eg the robes from the settlement.

As a druid you can regear easily with limited stuff.

Name: a blood-soaked wooden ring Area: Mansion of Twilight
Item Type: clothing Wear: finger Material: wood
Level: 30 Weight: 0 lb 1 oz
Modifies hp by 9
Modifies save vs paralysis by -5
Modifies save vs spell by -5

Sure they are not 20hp rings, but the saves are really nice.

Apparently that scroll doesn't work.

I went there with my druid.

So currently there's no source of it in the game, whatsoever.

Why not just give them trans metal to wood, but it makes the item druid_only?

Am I missing something here? I never cared about that skill except that they can use it to gear other interested parties.

Because druids are very strong and currently their only limiting factor is their hp.

If you allow transmuting then they have a lot more hp because they access new gear, especially as they can then strengthen if an Outlander.

Makes sense. I've played savages, but never played a druid so I've never tried to gear hp without metal. I have had them turn stuff to wood, mostly to fight other druids, but that's not really a thing anymore with nexus gone. Not dropping your stuff due to heat isn't a bad perk either.

Guess I'm too caught up on my past annoyance about them giving wood-elf warriors more access to weapons for that edge to notice anything else.

Why can't it be logged as well?

How many logs have been submitted to the staff where there is no solid explanation for the lack of lag?

Is it tons? Just a few?

I imagine you are tracking this and I'm pretty sure the staff has requested players submit those.

If it is tons. How come it can't be replicated?

They're all different.

There was only one player where it was pretty much consistent. Rotsignar was like ignoring half the lag played on him.

Rightly or wrongly I always just thought of the face kick as high damage ground control.

The blow to the ribs that knocks out wind is the one I thought of as lag.

But then I haven't played an assassin with the ground control or throw edges.