I am tired of seeing logs where newbs triumph because they were handed progging eq like prayer beads. Sick of seeing powerful combos made very sick by them too. Prayer beads are one of the most abused progging pieces of gear out there. I propose a small change.

Make prayer beads only available to empowerment classes. It fits with the nature of the item and will limit the number of people using and abusing people with them. It must be hellish to be a duergar against people with prayer beads.

Now admittedly lots of newbie paladins spamming wrath and having dispel evil progging all over the shop is nasty but at least you will know what you face instead of suffering at the hands of a goodie gank squad where nobody actually hits you save for all their prayer beads and brilliance helms.

-----Abernyte

Why is everyone, especially a vet like Abernyte bitching about them now?? Honestly, it's just damage, and that's easily dealt with. I've played a number of goody (and evil) heroes that were considered successful, and I have to say that prayer beads were never a thought in my mind in either case. As a goody, I can think of several things I'd rather put in that slot - usually it's not worth my time to gather, and by the time it is I already have something better.

Honestly I can only think of one or two things I'd rather have in that slot as a goodie. Hummingbird pendant, brooch with blue stones, one of those brooches from Thar-acacia, or the progging one from Organia.

All it does is prog right? No decent stats on it?

Beads? Think they're 15hp 15mana. And the prog.

asf

Although in hindsight I shudder to think of what I could have done with a pair of those on Iramath, along with my heartseekers, helm of brilliance, etc.

Why does everyone try to belittle everyone else's PoV by referring to anything they raise or question as bitching or whining!?

Anyway, I have issue with the relative ease and abundance of these items which are often PK winners for the inexperienced.

I don't have a massive problem with them against myself although when they are coupled with helm of brilliance etc it can make me just avoid the player rather then go through the hassle of gathering preps or preparing in general to deal with them when it comes with no skill on the part of the wearer.

I have just never been a fan of progging equipment. What I love about CF is the speed at which fights and battle turn when a players chooses a particular skill and another player then has to counteract said effects.


Just my opinion......take it or leave it.

-----Abernyte

JUST PLAYIN!

Maybe "bitching" was a strong word. I'm sorry, you're right.

1. When I'm playing a goodie, I never have the opportunity to wear them. Basically, some other goodies is ALWAYS wearing them, and I can't kill that goodie to get them.

2. When I'm playing a goodie, there's usually something else I'd rather be wearing. (Although based on this thread and the complaints in it, I'm reconsidering the value of prayer beads ).

3. When I'm playing an evil, these things never turn the fight against me for whatever reason.

This is how I have always felt about deathblow. I didn't like that it won my fights for me when I played RBW's long ago, and I certainly don't like when they cause me to lose fights. Hence, I don't play ragers. However, I think I may try a scout or defender some time.

Of course, you can dodge/parry/spin, etc. those f'n deathblows, at least. The necklaces are less forgiving in that regard.


As an aside: does anyone think it's time to take away the duergar vuln to holy, and just leave them with sun vuln? I feel pretty bad for them these days. That's probably just me though.

...but the evil equivalents of "progging" gear are a LOT worse but albeit not as easy to get. I could get prayer beads solo extremely easy but getting something from the Inferno is a lot harder - especially since either Liches horde the gear or because of changes that harm the ability to explore that place in general (alignment shifting, evil healer nerf, less playerbase to take down, etc).

But yeah, there are much worse items down there. If anything just make prayer beads a lot harder to get or prog less.

And yeah, I've done a duergar AP trying to fight an elf with prayer beads and heartseeker daggers. You could say it was a big kick in the nuts - he could be spamming "knee" and I would have lost.

I am not a newb and I am not dying to the prayer beads but I am watching them skew a lot of fights in the favour of the clueless goodie who is wearing them.

Yes there are maybe better items in 'Hell' but how often does the average player get down there?

Beads are too easy to get.

I don't think Isildur is quite calling you a newb, but let's be fair:

We all can name multiple Isildur PK-successful good characters and multiple Isildur PK-successful evil characters.

That gives him a better read on what's fair, alignment vs. alignment, than most of the players.

I talk a good game, but honestly...a lot of it is that I just play for a long time. It's easier to get PKs, edges, etc. when you've got 600 hours to work with.

That said, my point was just that if all the original poster is concerned about is newbies with beads then he really doesn't need to be concerned. Vet vs. newbie will almost always be tilted in favor of the vet, prayer beads or no. Newbie may have beads, but he doesn't understand how your class works, much less his own. He probably doesn't have any preps or a good set of aliases to work with.

Another thing I thought I'd mention- there's been some hyperbole in this thread regarding how much damage they actually do. To get an >>>ANNIHILATE<<< from them, it really needs to be on a vuln_positive character with no damage reduction, and that guy has to not make his save.

To play devil's advocate, though- they're a lot better than the stuff I could get with an evil character for that particular gear slot. Nobody's arguing they're not nice gear, or even necessarily that they're not "better" than what's available to evils in that same slot. I just don't think they're the "game changer" that people make them out to be. (Unless you're a duergar, then they might be.)

People in general agree that there is better evil gear somewhere in the game. The key word is "somewhere", not on actual evil characters. It's hard to get and very limited.
But half of the fortress or even more than a half is walking with prayer beards. When so many players prefer them over something esle, it may give you a hint about their real power. Plus, that same half of the fortress wears a brilliance helm as well. And half of that half is wielding defiance just because there 3 or so of them and nobody else can use them. And other half of that half walks with heartseekers.
That all together makes some sick progged machines than no evils can match in practice. Yes, in theory you can be a lich, gather all ST/Hell gear and hold onto it for a year, and probably then you will be as sick, but that is in theory.

It is true, that goodies have other issues/restrictions, so I don't necessary claim that balance is broken here. Still, prayer beards are probably out of control right now.

You're really exaggerating the counts on that stuff.

I'll wait.

Goodies ####ing suck when it comes to PK.

I'd much rather be an evil going against that guy with prayer beads and helm of brilliance.

Good: 4
Neutral: 7
Evil: 29

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I really wish imms would stop exposing PK stats to anyone, including themselves. And it was already done in the past, so perhaps I'm not alone.

Not only these stats promote bad gameplaying behavior, they are also very misguiding (like gang-o-meter) and it is not a good thing when players are rewarded/noticed because of their PK ratios (which in return promotes bad gameplaying even more in return).

Just several examples (not complete list) what people do for PK stats and probably what they would do less if PK ratio would not exists:
- gearing lowbies in midnight dragon or vulturing for hero corpse in order to build sick set at low ranks and rack kills there.
- trying hard to make a final blow in group fights
- any form of pk harvesting like: sitting in sweet spots to boost their ratios, ganging, repeatedly picking and multi-killing the same newbies, quiting when things are bad for PK-per-hour ratio, for example, when your opposition is strong and you have to spend time avoiding gangs or retrieving (which doesn't increase that stat), and any other smart-ass behavior aimed at PK harvesting in OOC ways which veteran players can easily spot.

While sometimes it's interesting to know what your PK stat looks like, I would still vote for removing it as it bring more evil than good.

And speaking of goodies. Of course they aren't in the top PK list because they have less targets and more restrictions, but that doesn't make them suck in PK, they suck only in PK stat.
It's like you probably won't kill as many people with your defensive shifter as with your giant warrior, but it doesn't necessary mean that defensive shifters are much weaker than giant warriors.

>And speaking of goodies. Of course they aren't in the top PK
>list because they have less targets and more restrictions

I'm guessing even if you only compared "kills by goodies on evils" vs. "kills by evils on goodies" that evils would come out vastly on top.

Though, such a comparison is still sort of meaningless in that there are different classes at play (paladin vs. necromancer) and a different prevalence of certain classes (i.e. thieves and assassins both skew evil).

So maybe fix a class (e.g. warrior) and compare "similar" races. Elf vs. drow. Storm vs. fire. Goodie human/felar/arial vs. evil human/felar/arial. And only count "good on evil" and "evil on good" kills. Still thinking evil comes out way on top, but only because certain skilled players tend to play evil/neutral almost exclusively.

Just off the top of my head, if you excluded all characters played by marcus, beront, elhe and jagaub from the comparison then good might come off looking *slightly* better compared to evil.

Can you explain how, for example, a good arial dagger spec is weaker than an evil arial dagger spec (on the arena for example) or a good elf invoker vs a drow invoker (no cabal powers).

Evils have some exclusive classes like necros/ap/orcs but goodies have paladins. Also, more goodies are more often backed up by healiers and have sanc (healers/paladins).

It more restrictions, set of enemies, and average player skill among alignments that matter, not the actual PK power of a character.
For example, people in Fort have only two opposite cabals while Empire gets more action.

Just quick stats from top pkillers by align

evils vs good:
Kostyan 174
Djabree 95
Kharghurln 183

goodies vs evil:
Niheriva 150
Alriac 119
Gryshilniar 110

I dont't see a significat swing here considering that two of three evils here were emperors with sick powers and hours.

>Can you explain how, for example, a good arial dagger spec is
>weaker than an evil arial dagger spec (on the arena for
>example) or a good elf invoker vs a drow invoker (no cabal
>powers).

A good invoker can't cast area spells in a place with lots of goodie bystanders. A good dagger spec shouldn't just immediately abandon groupmates if they're attacked. A good character can't lie and claim diplomacy then attack when the other comes unprepared. A good character can't choose to kill the easy-pickings of the same alignment, or probably even neutral alignment. It's harder for a good character to get away with not showing up at a cabal defense where they might die.

The ability to attack anyone you want whenever you want gives you the ability to pick easier fights, and the ability to run away from anyone you want whenever you want makes it easier to avoid dieing. Good vs evil doesn't give you a direct mechanical advantage, but it strongly affects the sort of strategic situations you get into.

They aren't weaker in PK, they just weaker in "PK ratio" which is so misguiding than makes people like you think they are really weaker in PK.

>They aren't weaker in PK, they just weaker in "PK ratio"
>which is so misguiding than makes people like you think they
>are really weaker in PK.

I don't personally care about the number PK Ratio, but if it's easier to kill people and easier to avoid being killed that seems to me like a real benefit. How would you measure pk success? Do you only consider the raw power achievable? That seems to me like it misses a lot of the reality of playing this game.

It complex.
Power, ratio, style, types of fights he's fighting and how they end (even if nobody died).

Just an example:
You may have a certain maran with very high PK ratio who avoids to login when a lich is about but rather login when he can boost his ratio even further.
And you may have a player with similar skill and similar build who does otherwise. I believe you understand that fighting a lich is not the best way to build amazing PK count.
But both characters are somewhat equal in terms of overall game balance despite of their pk ratio being totally different.

>It complex.
>Power, ratio, style, types of fights he's fighting and how
>they end (even if nobody died).
...
>But both characters are somewhat equal in terms of overall
>game balance despite of their pk ratio being totally
>different.

Absolutely. You can play in such a way as to maximize your pk ratio by cheesy means and you can play in a balsy way that looks bad if you just consider pk ratio. But what I'm saying is that being a goodie puts you at a disadvantage. There are more situations where you're going to die or not be able to kill someone. If you want to look at a complex analysis of whether evil or good has an advantage, you have to take that into account. While pk ratio isn't an important thing by itself, the fact that a goodie is forced to take bigger risks means something. And the fact that an evil has more opportunities to get kills means something. It doesn't mean *everything* but it isn't irrelevant either.

If you're talking about a given race/class combo, then yeah, there's nothing special about being "good" that makes that combo suck.

If you're going to compare "all goodies" vs. "all evils" then I'd say that certain things give evil a distinct PK advantage.

1. Align-specific classes. Namely necro and a-p vs. paladin. Paladins are hard to kill but typically don't kill a ton of people. Necros and anti-paladins do.

2. Available cabal powers. Emperor powers vs. Maran leader powers. C'mon. Nightreaver vs. Maran leader. C'mon. Scion powers vs. maran powers for the shapeshifter, invoker, transmuter and conjurer classes. C'mon.

3. Two classes (thieves and assassins) are semi-nerfed for goodies by virtue of the prevalence of detect hidden among evils. This is a "big deal" for the good-aligned versions of those classes.

4. One class (conjurer) is semi-nerfed for goodies by virtue of goodies not being able to use nightgaunts in most cases.

You list evil advantages and you skip goodies advantages.

Necro/ap are offensive classes. They may kill people but they also easier to die with. Plus marans have a special skill just against these two classes.

Emperor powers are give to the emperor only. The rest of Empire powers isn't that scary. Probably only Blade sect has somewhat good PK powers for masses.
And don't forget that imeprials have no mages. Hasted or shielded fortress army isn't a joke even if particular fortress powers aren't great.

Same for outlanders. Insect is cool, but they sit in camo anyway and do nothing with their powers.

Scion is just a nosense broken cabal wich is bad for overall gameplay and should be removed (you may argue).

>Necro/ap are offensive classes. They may kill people but they
>also easier to die with.

The fact that they're fragile isn't that relevant considering they most memorable examples are played by vets for whom the fragility isn't as much of an issue.

With respect to "getting lots of kills" necros and anti-paladins trump paladins. Also remember that paladins are often bound by role-play to put themselves in situations that are so crappy they surpass even the paladin class's built-in hard-to-kill-ness. Necros and anti-paladins have that problem much less frequently, if ever.

>Plus marans have a special skill just against these two classes.

I was taking that into account when I gauged the deathfulness of necro/a-p vs. paladin. At any given time there are maybe 10 marans. There are more goodies than that. And necros and anti-paladins both get a skill designed to negate eyes of flame.

>Emperor powers are give to the emperor only.

There is almost always an Emperor. One character, sure, but one character who's "juiced" compared to the competition. There's no goodie equivalent.

>The rest of Empire powers isn't that scary.

Warmaster > Maran leader.

High Priest Shaman > Maran leader shaman/paladin.

High Priest Healer > Acolyte leader healer (mostly due to vengeance).

Shadow is a tossup. Piercing gaze is really nice, but moreso if you're an Empire guy who has to worry about Outlanders.

Black sect can't be compared since it's limited to evil-only classes.

>Same for outlanders. Insect is cool, but they sit in camo
>anyway and do nothing with their powers.

In retrospect, Nightreaver powers don't really help my point since they're offset by a Sunwarden who has similar stuff.

>Scion is just a nosense broken cabal wich is bad for overall
>gameplay and should be removed (you may argue).

Be that as it may, it's only available to evils and its powers are arguably much more useful to an evil mage than maran powers are to a goodie mage.

I just wanted to talk about this particular point, because no one else had yet:

>Also, more goodies are more often
>backed up by healiers and have sanc (healers/paladins).

As someone who doesn't really play good characters, I can see how you would think this. Here's what you're missing:

1) Most paladins can't sanc people other than themselves, and even those that can need to do so in a way that, while really good in some ways, carries some extra complications/difficulties too.

2) Fortress (narrowing to that because a good Trib or Outlander or Herald will have a pretty different enemies list and set of obligations) sees roughly one competent PC healer per real life calendar year.

The reasons for that are many, and that's even further off topic to delve into them, so there I'm going to just ask you to take my word for that for now. Just factor in that even a player who is decent with, say, a warrior may be a terrible healer.

You might think, how competent do you need to be? I just need you to sanc me when I tell you to and that's plenty. You'd be amazed.

I've seen terrible healers of every cabal and alignment, but good always draws most of them.

I don't claim that good healers are excellent, but at least they have some.
One competant healer in a year in the Fortress is more than no healers at all for evil cabals. Plus you may have idiots just for sanc that is still better than no sanc.

As for paladins: if imms like a player behind a paladin, they give him temperance/retribution. If they want to screw him up, they toss him "hope". While the player itself is screwed, the rest of the cabal enjoys free sanc

Plus both classes may help with random heals.
Perfect or not, it's still better than no heal/sanc at all.

People like to talk about drawbacks of the Fortress but there also advantages which everbody seems prefer to skip.
Every cabal has it's own problems (and probably too much of them at the moment, so you rarely see expedictions to Hell, for example).
- Fortress has RP restrictions and idiot healers, but in return they have wider mix of classes.
- Empire has lack of healers and even if they have one, he is usually a cock and you may not have sanc at all. They also don't have access to mages, so no free haste/invoker-shields for everybody.
- Scion has less melee classes than other cabals and in general this cabal just ignores cabal wars or participates only when it is a clear win (there are exceptions of course)
- Outlander, while having wide mix of classes, have gay RP, so they just sit with their powers in camo.
- So tribunals.

Anyway, my point is that goodies aren't inferior in PK power to evils, but they have worse PK ratio, that's about it. At some point you really stop turning the world just around this one stat.

>Plus you may have idiots just
>for sanc that is still better than no sanc.

In theory I agree with you, in practice, age-death a Fort character and we'll talk about it again.

>Anyway, my point is that goodies aren't inferior in PK power
>to evils, but they have worse PK ratio, that's about it. At
>some point you really stop turning the world just around this
>one stat.

The world doesn't turn around that one stat. It's just easier to make a numerical argument around it than saying, I've played a lot of goods and a lot of evils and I think the game balances better if goods have advantages A, B, C and evil has advantages X, Y, and Z.

>>Plus you may have idiots just
>>for sanc that is still better than no sanc.
>
>In theory I agree with you, in practice, age-death a Fort
>character and we'll talk about it again.

I may try to do that if you ask Baer for an eaasy interview for me.
But, I don't like low rank spam killing (high ranking either. It's just me, I would rather spend two hours soloing a whistlewood druid instead of killing fours newbies), so I wouldn't get a maran spot early (if ever).
And if I would play a non-lowbie-killer self sacrificing goody who helps others and leaves the fight last I will get a horrible PK ratio and when I'm done you will tell me: "See? How goodies suck?".
I'm repeating myself, but every balance talk ends at PK ratio stat which is nosense in my eyes because it's dependant on so many other factors and a player's style.
I really start to feel that the only way to be heard is to present amasing "PK ratio" and I don't feel like I would spend several hundred hours with a griefer-char just (which seems a job, not a fun, for me) to be able to argue with somebody else.

I'm totaly agree with Dwoggurd here.

>Can you explain how, for example, a good arial dagger spec is
>weaker than an evil arial dagger spec (on the arena for
>example) or a good elf invoker vs a drow invoker (no cabal
>powers).

No I can't, because that's not what I'm claiming. Mechanics wise they're mostly identical.

My guess is that the staff have realized that without the "perks" to being good-aligned that nobody would play good-aligned characters, for all the reasons mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

As a side note, another reason (besides having fewer targets) that goodies don't get as many kills is that the targets they do have are typically of a higher average skill than the set of targets available to an evil character. So not only are there fewer people to kill, the set of people you can kill is going to consist of a higher-than-normal percentage of vets.

One other thought on the stats you posted:

Kostyan, Djabree and Khargurln managed to accumulate those goodie kill counts while also killing a ton of neutrals and evils. Had they decided to concentrate solely on killing goodies then I would expect their goodie kill counts to be slightly higher. Djabree, for instance, was focused on killing mages, then members of Empire and Scion, all of whom are evil.

Here's an expanded list with the top 15 for each alignment in terms of total PK wins, in order of total PK wins, with number of "opposite align" kills listed:

Evil:

Kostyan, 174
Djabree, 95
Blitzenturt, 223
Hunsobo, 241
Igbah, 173
Kharghurln, 183
Ravon, 158
Kjrorh, 112
Nreisshe, 122
Vens, 94
Kanaev, 122
Grunlath, 139
Dulmisa, 130
Cabdru, 112
Palmer, 75

High: 241, Low: 75, Median: 130

Macha, 109
Niheriva, 150
Alriac, 119
Malthalia, 70
Gryshilniar, 110
Hyzin, 121
Jeqo, 81
Brinton, 111
Mizfara, 103
Darascus, 95
Mhardat, 57
Obaznuk, 83
Lariya, 83
Adhelard, 83
Dungard, 79

High: 150, Low: 57, Median: 95

And, like I said, if those evil characters had been concentrating on killing only good-aligned opponents then their goodie kill totals would be even higher. (At the expense of their overall kill totals, of course.)

.

I sort of feel like if you die to a newbie solely because of prayer beads,then you might be the newbie.

Another point is that newbies die slot, prayer beads or no. Typically, beads will end up on vets or semi-vets. Just like high end evil gear.

It's a good piece of gear, but getting to murder whoever you want is still a million times better.

They ignore the issue by diverting it to saying 'This is a benefit of this alignment. If you are putting yourself in a situation to where you'd die because of these then you made a mistake.

Well I'll counter that if these things were balanced, you'd make dent targetable, clothing invulnerable, and treasures shatter in one hit from a targetted dent to the correct gear slot.

Since the latter is too hard to code and not going to happen, I'll thank you to stop calling progging unblockable DB with fewer disadvantages balanced due solely to alignment balanced, or make any and all of these items limit 1 unique. Killing whoever you want isn't an 'advantage' or 'tactical choice', it's a lifestyle and entertainment choice. Killing three other neutrals and full looting the AP or Lich who I either ganked or caught dying does not guarantee I will be able to kill that single goodie any easier when matched up with him and his buddies, especially if this goodie is either exploring in an area that I am more likely to die in than him trying to get to him even knowing it like the back of my hand, or the goodie is experienced enough to play conservatively but not experienced enough to think of entertaining #### to explore or gear to get aside from the prayer beads that will create an actual opening to kill them.

A far better, but still utter failure of an argument is, 'You're giving up stats to use these items.' When (and it *is* a matter of when, not if) they prog 2 or 3 oblits over 3 rounds, they are probably outdamaging whoever just dropped your weapon from str loss from not having the stats they are replacing.

(edited to add missing words to make whole sentences)

>They ignore the issue by diverting it to saying 'This is a
>benefit of this alignment. If you are putting yourself in a
>situation to where you'd die because of these then you made a
>mistake.

I'm not saying the second part of that. I'm just saying: This is a benefit of this alignment.

Evils still pretty much always kill more and die less than goods. The better players generally still prefer to play evils over goods.

I mean, if the argument you want to make is something more like, prayer beads should go away and good-aligned characters should just have permanent 50% damage reduction, maybe that's more interesting.

I mean, people are complaining about newbie goodies with these beads. You consider alignment...evils are more likely to be more experienced. Evil is also more likely to kill any said good, neutrals, or evil who has X nice items, which makes it almost impossible for random newbie evil to hold nice gear.

Now, goodies. More newbies, and more characters that are willing to HELP said newbies have respectable or better gear. So it really is a combination of newbies with super gear, and goodie vs. evil.

Personally, the only fact that bothers me is that it feels like the limit on those stupid beads is like six hundred. Everyone has those damned things *mutter*.

Prayer beards are OP. Not only they work very frequently, their limit is also high, so everybody has them. But I guess it was supposed to balance goodies laziness.

No prayer beads! Remove Defiance! Close the Inferno while you are at it.

Or not.