He's ten times harder than any other to get an item back from, a hundred times really when you count that simply stepping into the orc village can give you diseases, you have autoattacking mobs, and then he is a fully functioning shaman.

Why then is there zero credit for retrievals???

Just pay or bribe a hero to do it. If the chief isn't on, then it takes them no time at all to do it. Unlike all other outer guardians, you don't even need to be in the cabal to get the item back for someone else, and Tremblefist doesn't even auto-attack you after you fight him to begin with.

Seems its generally agreed upon by most that it is hard to retrieve from, harder then most outer guardians...

Why is a hard task unrewarded? Think that was the original question...

You get back your cabal item.

Sometimes it is okay to just do the right thing as your character without the player having a carrot hooked onto it.

Then by your logic there should be no exp when retrieving from ANY of the outer guardians.

I do agree that people should role play and retrieve their item, but...

Consistency, balance are a good things in a game... N that is not present here or in general with the mud(Its not easy to achieve).

It's always been a paper, rock scissors kind of game. Sometimes that's fun, trying to take down the paper when you are rock. To a lot of people it gets discouraging and they just stop playing your game.

They don't even have the resources to fix major bugs and police the big time cheaters.

No way they are going to get to rebalancing things for a smaller player base consisting of expert veterans.

CF is a game you have to play for what it is, not what it should be.

No these people suck and should be forced to wear wooden shoes...

exp change on the orc guardian is a pretty easy change I would think...

If consistency is that big of a deal, just write a trigger for your mud client that outputs "You recieve 500 experience!" every time you kill Tremblefist and problem solved. There are better places to rank than the orc village without your cabal powers.

Sure the coding is easy, but every change in code goes through roughly this process.

1. Playerbase says it should change at least 4 years.
2. Some immortal one day suggests, seemingly thinking it's his idea.
3. It goes to committee for the next eighteen months.
4. 3/5 immortals on the committee delete.
5. A year is spent forming a new committee.
6. That new committee spends the next 18 months arguing if it should be changed.
7. An IMP decides for the committee it needs to be changed, since 1/2 that committee is now deleted.
8. The change goes to a coder as the 457th thing on his list.
9. That coder deletes, be cause no one loves and appreciates him and he's on the verge of suicide. Thanks, CF.
10. A new coder comes, but for some reason instead of getting to the change, he decides to make a new seasonal race no wants, asked for, or plays.
11. The list of things the suicidal coder was going to do gets lost and the process begins again.

Seriously, man. Just be glad the finally broke up the big Ruskie perma and enjoy the many awesome parts and ignore these little stupid, broken things as best you can.

Why expend time and resources when there's an average of less than
3 hero orcs at any given time.

This might sound matrikian but I have an easy solution. Anytime someone
takes your cabal item and gives it to the orcs, kill that person and fullloot/sac.
Pretty sure they'll stop after a while.

We *only* make changes that people dislike, never things that make players happy.

The biggest hold up on that front lately has been me and Umi struggling to be online together to play rock, paper, scissor to see who gets to claim the bragging rights of ruining whatever it is that was most recently the source of anger amongst the players.





I am sure there is someone out there who will take this seriously and I just feel bad for them.

nt

nt

We *only* make changes that people dislike, never things that make players happy.

20 year game dev... This statement is amusing and spot on for what you get in most forums.

Do you mean that you've finally understood that your kid is less important than CF and I can roll your follower?

I am around-ish these days. Still chasing feral children around a lot, but now that there are two of them they help entertain themselves some.

You can give it a shot, I can tell you it will have better chances tahn the last go do but it still might not have a huge chance of success.

>Seriously, man. Just be glad the finally broke up the big
>Ruskie perma

You never know.

Consider it an incentive for heroes to retrieve or defend in the first place.

I don't get it.

It's a retrieval. All retrievals, everywhere else, get xp, and can, when enough, give edge points.

Why is this retrieval treated differently than all the others?

And if it is being treated differently, as it's by far the hardest of all retrievals, shouldn't it be the other way, giving more, not less?

Is an orc going to entwine you? Sleep you?

In some ways it is easier because there are less likely to be pc defenders.

You seen to have a spectacularly skewed view on things and I can only ever actually recall seeing posts of yours complaining about how XYZ is broken because it happens to be something that is mildly useful vs Battle but nearly garbage vs everything else.

If you have then you should have a slightly better understanding of why a lot of your "concerns" aren't relevant in the big picture.

It seems like you're arguing just to argue.

Tremblefist IS tough to retrieve from, even for heroes.

Most of the time when he's got your item, it's not because the orcs took it. It's because someone gave your item to an orc. That's questionable RP no matter who did it.

Next thing you know he's got you all cursed and diseased and stuff and because the takes so long to kill any orcs on have called in at least one someone to kill you.

It's not broken, but it's also not balanced. CF is a game that is aaaaalll about balance.

A lot of people in the thread are just asking how this makes sense within the context of game balance?

Not everyone hates you, but you sure do try to make us. ;)

Short version: if its not broken then its fine.

Longer version:

Balanced is complicated. The end result is the desire to make all things viable across all fields, but in order reach the same destination the path doesn't need to be the same. There is a certain amount of give and take when playing to the pros/cons of any class/cabal/etc in the situations they are put into.

It is a super time consuming and potentially difficult thing for any healer to counter raid any cabal for their item at any level, so do we adjust all retrievals based on that? No, because that is stupid.

Yes Tremblefist can do some annoying things. Most of the classes who find the things Tremblefist can afflict them with however have an easier time in counter raiding vs the standard cabals. The classes that tend to be less bothered by Tremble tend to find it slightly more tedious to retrieve vs other locations. In that regard, it *is* balanced.

I'd like to see it be frowned upon to give a taken item of power to Tremblefist.

The orc chief and the provost just should not be pals, and the tribunal should not be giving the fetish to the orcs. It just makes so sense to me.

Scarabs are the powerful, dangerous zealots who will accept subservient orcs, but I don't think a powerful zealot gives his enemies item of power to a subservient sycophant. It just makes no sense to me.

Empire, the great keeper's of Order and Civilization are actually breaking Imperial Law to give items to the uncivilized orcs. All items belong in the throne.

Entropy, they can do whatever they want. And I'm not too worried about Entropy/Orc team ups because those are two pretty small factions.

Battle, for some reason hates orcs and orcs hate Battle. There's actually no continuing basis for this, but it is what it is, but Battle should be too proud and too dependent on parity to every give an item to the orcs.

Fort/Outlander obviously wouldn't.

So yeah, if the one orc and the one entropist want to keep enemy items at GS, fine. Otherwise it seems out of role to me.

If people were keeping to their roles in this regard, I think it would indeed be quite balanced.

It only gets EP when there is opposition. I have never been opposed as a midbe retrieving vs Tremblefist.

You're mistaken. You get less regular xp (500 vs 1k vs more, with more opposition), but with all the other retrievals, from all of them, you get edge points. The only one you don't get edge points from (and that additional regular xp) is from Tremblefist. It makes no sense. It's retrieval. You can argue all day about how strong or not or how hard or not, but a retrieval is a retrieval. They should all be treated the same.

http://www.carrionfields.net/helpsearch.php?id=3497

I am not sure if you have read that recently or not.

Yes, Thimblecrisp is tough for a mid-level char to kill. It was especially tough as a villager without the head. It chapped my hide every time I had to go risk plague and poison to get the head back as a defender thief. Having said that, some of my favorite memories were trying to retrieve from there. Yes, it's tougher. But, if I had a vote, I'd probably keep it as is.

This is neither here nor there, but I'll chime in and say that I also find retrieving from the orc village to be a challenge relative to other cabals.

How many hero orcs are there day to day, 1? 2 (Haven't seen it recently.)

Orcs currently make up about 1% of the MUD's population, around 6 or so in existence. Only 3 orcs are above level 30, and only one at/around hero.

Quality, not quantity!

-Ish

>Quality, not quantity!

This is the first time anyone has ever said that about orcs. Poxy scalawags.

I've ALWAYS hated tremblefist, and the orcs have no item to take, so there really is no reason for him to be so tough. I've now played two fort characters since returning, and anytime the orb was taken, it was only ever to the orc village, didn't matter who helped take it, and then as a lowbie, it's pretty much impossible to retrieve, unless I want to spend like, 3 real life hours there.

N

nt

I'm saying Scarab/Empire/Tribunal/Entropy can't give whatever item they take over to the orcs for safe keeping.

If the orcs take it, fine. Let them give it to Tremble. But we all know an orc is a lackey. Especially now, with low PB. Orcs are even forced to make nice nice with Tribunal. And they still can't go to Galadon. :(

any cabal takes your item and then gives it to the orc who just happens to be around.

Generally I wouldn't do that and within most canals I would never do it.

However, if there are heroes who could retrieve safely but won't even attempt to, and keep sending midbies, then I'll use orcs and tremblefist to address the issue.

Also, not all cabal guardians are equally difficult. The watcher, for example, is much much harder and more dangerous than the executioner, particularly if there's a defender.

And unwanted retrievers at the spire only have to flee one step to safety.

So I'm not sure why tremblefist should be the same as another outer.

You already cannot give cabal items. You have to drop them. If you make it no drop, then the guy with the killing blow is kinda hosed, as it makes it so you can't recall/teleport (obv villagers don't care about this feature when they raid and may take advantage when raided).

If no drop, it makes it so air shifters/lowbies can't run it (not opposed to this). Also makes it super dangerousif you're getting hunted and can't drop/recall.

Not sure if no drop, the items gets made so you can teleport or recall with it.

All that said, I have never had problems with Tremblefist with a variety of classes in the high 20s and above, sans defender.

Taking the head actually meant something. Lowbies aren't gonna retrieve it, midbies not easily. The heroes actually have to come for their item instead of hiding with the big D.