Daevryn, thanks for fixing the eyejab bug. That was really pissing me off. To what ever Imm I was talking to about it, I have a degree in mathematics. Statistical probility is something I understand quite well and I KNEW the numbers simply weren't adding up. I had a log of over 200 eyejab attempts. Sometimes you guys just need to accept the fact that maybe us players know some stuff. Also, to that other imm that said it may be cathartic to bitch about stuff, but it makes people not want to interact with me, you have to interact with the players on the firsthand before someone like me would give a #### about that. I came real close to making a full blown ass out of myself that night. I guess those anger management classes did some good. Anyhow, no hard feelings. I'm not exactly myself these days so maybe it's me.

I should've deleted him a long time ago, but I made him to test out two legacies and hand to hand with an elf. I've gathered my data and I'll try to think of something that isn't so masochistic where I don't have to cut through so much red tape.

You guys should add an edge that allows you to swiftstrike with a hand to hand elf spec. Then it wouldn't be so bad to take that spec as an elf. Oh yeah, inspect goods needs to rise with commerce XP and/or observation xp.

The fort RP is too treacle for me and it makes me want to gouge my eyes out at times so I tried to spend as much time alone as possible. Anyhow, that's that.

*flips you all the bird* See ya.

~

What did it do for you? I know it did very very little for Tallanalas.

I've enjoyed it with every character I've had it with. It nukes an attack every round, even with my human it did this at least 70% of the time. With Meko it was a rare event to not get the autofeint. Against shapeshifter forms which are mostly stupid you reduce their few attacks by one pretty much all the time. There wasn't a time in a pk when I got the move off I didn't get the disarm attempt and the ONLY times that they weren't disarmed were when what they had was cursed. I have a log of me fighting Knacnar and he just kinda stops in the middle of combat and scratches his head. What sucked more than anything was the abundance of cursed items and their tendacies to be iron and in the hands of fire giants. Also it was sometimes VERY difficult to get the super feint command to go in since I got so many auto-feints. I'd typically lose a round or two just trying to get the command to go in. They probably should tweak it so you can get the super feint whenever you want.

To that other guy, the answer is nope. Fluid doesn't interact with evasion in any form or fashion. They actually compete with each other. You can't use evasion while the autofeint is going on and you can't get the autofeint while you are using evasion. You CAN get your evasion feint in early in the round and then get the autofeint to go off late in the round, but they won't swing and miss until the next round and you won't be able to put in your super feint under these circumstances.

Now what would make it REALLY neat is if it had a reduced chance to feint multiple attackers kind of like evasion does, even if this was only on the inputed feint comand. I'm pretty sure they designed legacies to lean towards a spec or three but to never key off of a single spec skill.

Being that this is my second whip spec with it, I can say it's vastly underrated. It's most effective on things that attack once or twice a round, works great against shapeshifters (the rake was typically the only thing that would hit me from bears), and quickly loses effectiveness against foes that strike 5 or more times a round. If you're the type of guy that depends on his legacy choice to make/break the character, then don't take this legacy. If you are the kind of guy who views legacies as boosts and non-essential, then this one is right up your alley. It's defensive/utilitarian in nature.

I'm sure the reason you don't see it often is the tendacy for high int/dexy chars to move towards dagger/sword as I'm sure it will probably interfere with riposte and concealed a tad. But you'd have to verify that with the guys wearing the administrative hats.

"Experiment in masochism" makes me think of all of CF.

I'm not posting this to rag on you, but...I got an angry/annoyed vibe from Mekovhopo pretty much every time we interacted. I could never tell if it was directed at me specifically, or if you were just angry at the world. And this was long before you started to get irritated about not having been made Maran.

Elf hand/whip does seem pretty masochistic, btw.

That and the low dam-roll and how hard it was to have armor and still be able to dodge. Once I got a nice stack of +str gear it wasn't so bad, but by that time I just simply didn't care. And all that asking about Maran was an attempt to get the imms to give more feedback. I "KNEW" I wasn't getting maranized. That environment breeds contempt because there's no interaction. It's basically sink or swim buddy and hope you're swimming towards the shore instead of out to sea! The ONLY feedback I got with them was when I forgot I was wearing those evil boots and Baerinika bitched at me over the CB when a simple tell would've sufficed. Unless public embarassment was what she was going for... then I guess that worked pretty good. They really need to work on dishing out more positive feedback. The research on positive feedback vs negative feedback is just simply overwhelmingly in favor of the positive garnering better results. Negative feedback has a lot of unwanted side effects.

But no, it wasn't you. The fishing's been great lately and when I'm not feeding the bream I've been wearing those bass out so by the time I get home I'm fairly lit and I'm sure anything I say at that point comes off as angry or irritated when it probably isn't intended that way.

nt

The ONLY feedback I got with them was when I forgot I was wearing those evil boots and Baerinika bitched at me over the CB when a simple tell would've sufficed.

I'm sorry, but if that's your idea of harsh treatment, every era of Carrion Fields since the game was invented was a dozen times harsher.

You broke a very obvious rule of the cabal. You weren't uninducted. You weren't docked XP, although it would have been well within precedent if you had been. You merely had to stop using evil equipment.

As an aside, that incident convinced us that it is not worth policing that cabal rule, and now Fortress people simply can't wear Evil items.

The research on positive feedback vs negative feedback is just simply overwhelmingly in favor of the positive garnering better results. Negative feedback has a lot of unwanted side effects.

One example that came up recently was the use of the command that grants experience points. This can be used to add or subtract experience. Care to guess what percentage of uses have been positive, i.e. in the character's favor?

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Giving out exp here and there is a pretty pointless endeavor unless you give it to them immediately after doing what is good. Since you can't police the whole playerbase all the time, I don't think that's an advisable way to do it. To get to the point of what I meant, my character was 123 hours old. That's over five complete days worth of playing. In that 123 hours I recieved no bump, hint, or nudge towards doing what was needed to become a maran. I recieved almost no interaction from the other marans, and at the end of the day they could only guess at what I needed to do better. Obviously 123 hours into, I'm never going to get it. But you'd think that at SOME point during the 100+ hours I was caballed you could say "nice job" or "hey, you know what would be nice? If you did this..." or "if you keep this up, you'll always wear that squire's mantle."

That's all I was getting at. You could even do it via note to reduce the amount of face time.

I feel like I put way more effort into my characters than most people do, but only recieve accolades from the players. While that's good and all, it doesn't give me nifty edges or abilities which are what I fantasize about.

I don't know, I guess you need to ask for it. Kind of like how certain people always manage sweet sets some how. They ask someone to get it for them.

> Kind of like how certain people always manage sweet sets some how. They ask someone to get it for them.

I feel like most people who get and keep "sweet sets" usually get them (largely) on their own. They may recruit other players to help them get certain pieces off the mob, but they are the ones "driving" the effort. Some pieces may be gifts, but you have to be "the guy people want to give stuff to" in order for that to happen.

There's another option that I think comes into play more often. A lot of these "Sweet set" guys have chronic issues with violations.

My impression is that cheating for sweet sets is in the minority, and that looting a hero for sweet sets is even in the minority.

If someone with a sweet set whips you, honestly, your default assumption -- even though it isn't always correct -- is that that person knows what they're doing.

I always get a good laugh when someone who's never won a PK is ranting to someone who's gone 70-0 in PK about how they wouldn't have had a chance without their great gear, when I know very well that set of great gear was acquired slowly through a long stretch of wholesale murder.

nt

That wasn't who I was thinking of at the moment, but that scenario may well have come up for him as well for all I know.

In fact I tell people IC'ly that's an OOC consideration and they should focus on themselves first.

It's just something I see semi-regularly.

From your post:
"The fort RP is too treacle for me and it makes me want to gouge my eyes out at times so I tried to spend as much time alone as possible."

Having seen a few of your characters since I've been back-- they're hair-trigger irritable and demanding. You also noticed that other Maran shied away from you ("I recieved almost no interaction from the other marans"), even in a cabal where we see more interaction and high-fiving than any other.

To your credit, this character was something of a reach for you, but you might benefit from a character that intentionally doesn't put much emphasis on who won, who lost, who got what gear, "last word", telling people what to do, etc. Try to kick back, relax, and play cooperatively. I suspect you'll find that this character would see positive feedback both from players and staff, and you might learn some things that carry forward into future 'serious' characters.

As an aside, we occasionally see posts on the Battlefield characters that were built to "just try out a legacy" or "just see how (race) works with (spec pairing)", but we rarely see players actually trying to adapt a different playing style. You'll learn a lot more playing something opposed to your comfort zone.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Spot on from what I saw.

>To your credit, this character was something of a reach for you, but you might benefit from a character that intentionally doesn't put much emphasis on who won, who lost, who got what gear, "last word", telling people what to do, etc. Try to kick back, relax, and play cooperatively. I suspect you'll find that this character would see positive feedback both from players and staff, and you might learn some things that carry forward into future 'serious' characters.

As an aside, we occasionally see posts on the Battlefield characters that were built to "just try out a legacy" or "just see how (race) works with (spec pairing)", but we rarely see players actually trying to adapt a different playing style. You'll learn a lot more playing something opposed to your comfort zone.<

Really gotta agree with this. I know every time I've done it I have a completely different perspective on certain issues.

Also, Valg, you can kiss my ass since I heroed not one but two goodies!

For reference: http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=4&topic_id=68739&mesg_id=68930&page=

Put that in your pipe and share it with me!

PS I still want that Zorszaul quest form Nep.

You should learn to take it as well. This type of reaction to what was intended to be a helpful post is fairly childish. If I were you guys up top, I'd do less of this and more "thank you" type stuff.

I think I'm done here. Say what you will. Get your last word in if it makes you feel better.

I'm not sure how essentially saying "You said one of your problems was that the rest of your cabal didn't interact with you; this may be why they didn't want to interact with you" is childish.

Is it so hard to hear that some of the fault for your problems may be yours?

As far as your original comment goes, the players have largely trained me to give less feedback during a character's life. Everyone says they want it; maybe 5% of the people I give it to actually take it anything resembling well and don't bitch at me for half an hour about how my opinion of them isn't fair or how another player was so mean to them they had no choice but to spam a racial slur at them in all caps 50 times.

Based on this thread alone, I'm not seeing you in the 5%.

"You said one of your problems was that the rest of your cabal didn't interact with you; this may be why they didn't want to interact with you"

What I "MEANT" to say by all of that is that the players don't hold the keys, the imms do. The player feedback doesn't have a lot of meaning to me in that regard. This is why I shy away from fort and empowerment characters, and to an extent the empire. I don't like someone else holding the keys to my enjoyment of something. To an extent maybe after 80 hours of caballed life for a character in a cabal where this type of information would be useful (ie, fort) you should just drop them a note that says "This is good this is bad" instead of just simply leaving them in the dark. That is all I meant by feedback.

But what's childish is turning it into a pissing contest of who's right and who's wrong. I think all I've learned from this is that I will avoid posting my opinion in the future since I clearly have a harder time conveying it than I thought I did and the people I'm conveying it to appear to not want to hear it as much as I thought they might.

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time. I'm going to try to catch that five pound bass now since I caught his slightly smaller brother yesterday.

When I'm trying to figure out how to do good in a new cabal, I usually pay attention to what the other members are doing. Then when some start getting last names, titles and rewards, it tells me what the Imms like to see (and sometimes don't like to see) in characters.

Good luck on the fishing!

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

I got skillz.

Can't speak for others, ofc

Yeah. I could see this being the case. People tend to take even mild criticism as insulting - I guess because people pour a lot of hours into their characters.

Still, while ideally you'd like feedback during the character's life in many cases Imm comments are the only way you'll be able to figure out what the general appraisal of you is.

At first I was thinking you were an Outlander because of your name. Then I thought you were uncabaled. Maybe I'm just forgeting.

I didn't mind being around you and I half expected us to hero you but alas.