- The legacies Fortress of the Spirit (has this been picked in the last 3 years by any warrior?!?!?), Place of the Raging River, and Vanguard's Desire become highly expensive edges. None of those legacies get much traction, none seem OP at all if switched into edges. However, you can only choose 1 of them (so you can't take all 3).

- The edge Parry Anything becomes a legacy. Could even fold it into something like One with Shadows.

- The edges Ehren Soul/Ehren Lord become a combined Legacy called Ehren Warrior.

- The edges Seven Winds of Hamsah Mu'Tazz/Reckoning of the Mongoose become more expensive.

- Assassins lose the ability to hide in Mountains and Hills (it doesn't make sense to me that assassins are better at stealth than both thieves and rangers...who main allure is that they are supposed to be stealthy).

- An edge/flaw is introduced into the game called Eternal Damnation. This edge/flaw will be automatically given to any character that ####s the Bull in Hell. It will function like Ancestral Curse, in that it will periodically damn you for a short duration at random times. However, it will also increase regen rates by 15% while within Hell proper. It never made sense to me that Hell is basically a total win/win (with no drawbacks save perhaps 1/3 CON) for any evil/neutral character that goes there, short of Tongni losing AP weapons down there.

- Beastmaster Tame becomes useful at hero ranges.

- Thieves gain edge points for heroing (allowing hero thieves to choose Devious Versatility).

- Shapeshifters at 51 gain the ability to have up to 3 partial shifts up.

- Transmuters gain 100 xp penalty.

- Assassins gain 100 xp penalty.

- The "Ale" edges for dwarves become part of the class build. Dwarves are terrible for a lot of builds. This gives dwarves an incentive to be drunk, and who doesn't like that?

- STSF loses cutoff.

- Trance loses cutoff. It sucks that the most powerful ability of a thief/polearm warrior can be replicated by a legacy/skill. Make polearms/thug thieves much more valuable and desirable for PK.

- HeroIMM's gain more abilities, such as the ability to interact with players + give IMM xp + take over mobs (but not keep IMM powers while within the mob). I feel bad for a majority of HeroIMMs, especially ones who haven't gone through the process. Perhaps tie this to their area writing, as in if they finish 50% of their area then these abilities are "unlocked". I really don't see a ton of incentive for anyone who doesn't code to want to be an IMM at the moment, perhaps this would change it. I can't roll any new characters, can't post on an unofficial forum, and have to spend 99.9% of my time writing an area/reading roles? No thanks.

- New Edges: Keep Barrier/Keep Aura/Keep Shield added to all mages choosable edge list, though these are mutually exclusive (and VERY expensive). This allows a mage to set one of their locations for one of these sleek wands (as in, say I have an sleek amber in XXXX, before I gather it I discuss Keep Aura and now that amber will ALWAYS be my amber spot). Not only would this give IMMs a data point to look at balancing wand spots, I think it would open a lot of tactical choices. Personally, I'd rather have a supremely useful aura spot than a barrier spot, so I don't think it would be OP at all. Not only that, you'd still have to do "the search" until you found THAT SPOT you wanted to keep, so it would keep people exploring.

- Rant channel unlocked. Rant channel will not be able to be seen by anyone but the player ranting, not even by IMMs, however, it would allow players to lose their #### OOC without ruining a character. As of now, if a player loses their ####, they either do it IC (that's bad), on newbie (that's also bad), or by pray (that's really bad).

- Hunter rangers gain a skill (stealing this from Dallevian) called Falconry. It would cost 150 mana, 168 hr cooldown, but it would allow a Hunter a summon a falcon to give them the location of any targetted prey for 4 hrs (would function somewhat like Imperial Spies).

- More Galadon mercs! Have a merc of ALL RACES in Galadon, and have the gnome merc be an invoker (only touches + low level spells like cyclone), the felar merc be a ranger (can camo), the duergar merc be a thief (gets hide), etc. Would allow for newbies that use these mercs to better understand the abilities of each race/class.

- Make the Copenham Inn a "newbie" cabal. Maybe move XXXXXX, that one mob who progs a crapload of quests, to the Copenham, so newbies would constantly get quests to learn more about the game/preps/locations. This "cabal" would not have an item or a guardian, you could totally get attacked inside, but all members of the cabal get 25% dam reduction and lag protection while within the Copenham so it would keep them somewhat "safe". Make the bartender sell low level preps like detect invis/enlarge/reduce/word of recall/etc (as drinks/food) only usable by the members of said "newbie" cabal.

- I can't really think of any more...

this video was on Digg today

http://digg.com/video/eagle-huntress-mongolia

hunters lose entangle and bearcharge (lag). falconry would be the skill to help offset that. basically, you could 'falconry target' and it would do one of two things.

1- search for prey and tell you the room if they're outdoors
2- follow prey if in the same area, and you'll get a tick by tick for 8 ticks on the room the prey is in each time

that's it. maybe an edge to hound them if they try to sleep, it'll peck once and make them bloody.

This would make more sense in the beastmaster arsenal

autotrack

each room they walk into that is wilderness shows who has been through via 'track' skill

In other news...Digg still exists?

I will lump all the legacies/Edges together and just say I've not played with them in a LONG time and they have changed too much from when I did. So I will not comment upon them.

- Assassins lose the ability to hide in Mountains and Hills (it doesn't make sense to me that assassins are better at stealth than both thieves and rangers...who main allure is that they are supposed to be stealthy).

Having just played an assassin, I would say keep the hide just add a small lag to it when non-civ area. (If hiding outside civ is really an issue to people). I know you say Rangers/Thieves are supose to be the masters of their trade..but so are assassins. So that little lag round for hiding out there may give a little balance. Between both options.

- Beastmaster Tame becomes useful at hero ranges.

Honeslty since I havent played one at hero cant say..however I watched one or two with Raja doing some cool things. *shrug* What is "useful" to you?

- Thieves gain edge points for heroing (allowing hero thieves to choose Devious Versatility).
From what I remember looking at the break down..this could break some of the balancing part Thieves.

- Shapeshifters at 51 gain the ability to have up to 3 partial shifts up.
..ok

- Transmuters/Assassins gain 100 xp penalty.
Dont know if this is needed. My pk range with a felar assassin was brutal most of the time. And I dont see many transmuters at the moment. If you say this because there are a lot of X at the moment..dont worry. The trend usually shifts after a little.

- HeroIMM's gain more abilities, such as the ability to interact with players + give IMM xp + take over mobs (but not keep IMM powers while within the mob). I feel bad for a majority of HeroIMMs, especially ones who haven't gone through the process. Perhaps tie this to their area writing, as in if they finish 50% of their area then these abilities are "unlocked". I really don't see a ton of incentive for anyone who doesn't code to want to be an IMM at the moment, perhaps this would change it. I can't roll any new characters, can't post on an unofficial forum, and have to spend 99.9% of my time writing an area/reading roles? No thanks.{/i]
Ok..here is one I can comment upon with a little bit of knowledge. Easy answer? Hell no. Detailed..ok. First heroImm time is the probation time of being an Imm. Heroimms in my time had a lot they could do already and I imagine not much was taken away these days(if not more already added for them).
Heroimms already can award exp for things, however the amount is what limits them. And a major hell no on giving them switch or force skill where they can control mobs. Heroimms are allowed to interact with mortals and it is encouraged. They should be answering questions on newbiechannel, interacting on cabal channel, rping with people who give them tells. Etc. They also review roles and check for descs. They have a lot on their plate and it is the time for the other staff to get a feel for them and see if it works out. Once they hit 53...they start to get the fun toys. Give it time. If they are good they will make it.

Rant Channel
Oh hell no. This would cause too many headaches, bitching and whining. I think there is enough already on forums/chat rooms, etc. Dont need yet another venue for it.

- Hunter rangers gain a skill (stealing this from Dallevian) called Falconry. It would cost 150 mana, 168 hr cooldown, but it would allow a Hunter a summon a falcon to give them the location of any targetted prey for 4 hrs (would function somewhat like Imperial Spies).
Cool ideas, and maybe workable with some tweaks

Copenham Inn
Eh...not sure about this. Though I could see maybe the Eternal Inn being made something like this. Put a newbie pit at the healer outside and recall point stationed there for them. It would allow a place for newbies to go and interact and have Herald members kind of teach though story etc. Give Heralds a little boost in numbers around the Inn. As well, if newbie flag is active you can get into the Lyceum without having to be vouched for. Allows the newbies to read all the books in there.


A few things I noticed when playing from my own view:
There is a #### ton of gear that has reached its limit max...yet the player base is the lowestest it has been. (yet almost everyone I saw had tons of high end gear from rank 11 on). Increase crumble rate of gear on alts/horders? Up the limit of some of the gear..etc.

People complain about edge points and how to get them. Well one idea on a way to gain more points that would keep with both pk/rp (however would require a little code work). The idea is taken from WoW but add in reputation. Ie: You kill elven mobs, your rep with them goes down but you get rep with Dark elves. You raid with battle, your battle rep goes up. It would require keeping track on your pfile so not sure how much stress this would add...but you can have a lot of other side affects. Your rep with X goes way bad...you are not allowed in their cities anymore and mobs with that race flag may attempt to agro. Just tossing a random idea out

>>- Transmuters/Assassins gain 100 xp penalty.

>Dont know if this is needed. My pk range with a felar assassin
>was brutal most of the time. And I dont see many transmuters
>at the moment. If you say this because there are a lot of X at
>the moment..dont worry. The trend usually shifts after a
>little.

Something you may or may not have realized since your return is that classes no longer have experience penalties. So a human assassin today has the same penalty as a human warrior did a couple years ago (and still does, of course).

So where at best an assassin (for example) used to be at 300 it's not pretty common to see them at zero or 100. That's a fairly significant difference in low/mid rank PK, especially against builds where the entirety of the penalty comes from race.

On the other hand, it makes things like felar/arial assassin or storm paladin much more palatable, in my opinion.

I mean, I lost out on a tattoo for going once that was a real consequence. Maybe imms could take angles like that but beyond that I don't see any reason to give a detriment to people enjoying the coolest area ever made. Not just in CF. Every MUD, everywhere.

Increased regen in Hell is nothing to sneeze at.

It's bad enough I'd seriously consider not exploring hell with serious characters.

A 4 hr damnation once every ~128 in game hours is enough to make you not want swordmaster's gauntlets?

That's actually kinda funny.

See what I did there?

I respect Scar's work, but Hell is a #### area.

Any area you have to "close" if people learn it sucks. Sorry, but that's the truth.

He didn't close it because people learned it, he closed it because people weren't willing to find out about everything IC. They passed out maps and told all the secrets of it OOC, and so all the work he put into it, making mortals find out about all of this IC, was going to waste. I think he's fine if people learn it, but I also think he wants all of that learning to stay IC. I mean hell, you should know all about this (IE you know who I'm talking about very well.)

You can't pretend that there is no world outside the game.
Or that you can control that world.

If an area isn't healthy enough that OOC info sharing breaks the intended balance, then the balance was never there to begin with. It's a time-delay bomb, and you would be just making the delay longer.

I've always encouraged people to write guides to my areas, because I was confident that:
1) there was enough hidden fun stuff to find that even community effort wouldn't "exhaust" the area in 3 months
2) even if you knew everything about the area, it would not give you overwhelming advantage in the game overall
3) the challenges were diverse and unpredictable enough that besides knowing the mechanics you also needed skill/reflexes/preparation/good teamwork.

Hoping that people will be "fair" and stop sharing info OOC is stupid and will never work. If you rely on that, then, indeed, you're better off closing the area.

>I've always encouraged people to write guides to my areas,
>because I was confident that:
>1) there was enough hidden fun stuff to find that even
>community effort wouldn't "exhaust" the area in 3 months
>2) even if you knew everything about the area, it would not
>give you overwhelming advantage in the game overall
>3) the challenges were diverse and unpredictable enough that
>besides knowing the mechanics you also needed
>skill/reflexes/preparation/good teamwork.

I think Inferno certainly satisfies this list, with #2 being largely negated by the overall challenge/difficulty (#3).

I'd probably concede that Silent Tower fails #2, though that's at least artificially throttled by the entrance requirements, but that's admittedly a bit of a band-aid.

But besides that, I'd argue that all of the areas in CF and in particular the explore areas are accurately described by what you said.

And that is why there's no real need to worry about OOC Hell info sharing.

>And that is why there's no real need to worry about OOC Hell
>info sharing.

I agree with the caveat that assuming an area author knows what they're getting into I have no problem with them asking players to respect their wishes with regard to puzzles and subsequently changing / closing the area if those wishes aren't respected.

That seems like more trouble than it's worth to me, but again, as long as the author is okay with the likelihood that someone will #### on them, so be it.

With the exception of the flute I see a lot of nifty but not much dramatically game changing. A few pieces of archmage gear that have gotten out are pretty nasty but shot of another area knowledge expert 200 charge AP that's never seeing the light of day again. I would honestly push to remove the entrance requirements simply so we can see archmage killing groups make a stab at it.

Not to mention he changed the XXXX that would allow you to master all skills in 10 hrs, he changed the XXXX that would allow you to get prepped the #### up and drop atom bombs on people, etc etc

Those talismans are insane.

That axe is super duper nice.

The dagger is pretty ####ing dope.

The gear you can make is some of the best gear in the game.

That polearm you can make is probably top 3 polearms in the game.

Etc etc etc.

Cause I don't fear it much from the logs. Venara got killed like a bitch easy enough.

Has some nice procs too.

Or does it?

Malaise dude.

Malaise stops you from doing a lot of stuff. A LOT.

I think Scar (and he is very obviously able to speak up if I'm dead wrong. I've been wrong before, and would not be surprised if I'm wrong again.) closed it more because he has wasn't happy his hard work for descriptions and attention to detail was being undermined, to be honest. Players were getting the gear and getting to explore, but missing out on the immersion aspect of Hell.

for putting OP gear in there.
Of course most of the people who come down to Hell, do it for leet loot.

All the loots

I wanted to be known as the best hell explorer ever. I wasn't really ever good a much else in CF other than exploring, surviving, and roleplaying. If I was gonna put 20 years into a game I wanted to be remembered for something unique.

It started slow, then as I learned it, it got easier. Then after a while I could lead a group through successfully, then after a while longer, I could take a subpar group through. Then after a while longer of that, I was able to 2 man a warrior and healer to the 8th circle, just because I knew all the mechanics and tricks and mobs and rooms from time spent.

It's just like every other area, repetition and massive time spent looking at every single room and item description. Only if you die there, you can't really easily get back to where you were, so the risks are high. The rewards are also super high, and you only get to keep them if you fully succeed so I think the area is perfectly done.

I emailed scarabaeus many times while I was exploring hell. I noted things like seemingly unfinished parts, unfinished or messed up room descs, mechanical issues and questions and possible bugs. He never gave me the impression at all he was upset we were seeing serious progress there, and he seemed happy to get the feedback from people going there.

Trust me, the dude didn't write the area because he didn't want people to use it. He just wants them to get the adventure experience from it, not have it handed to them. Its more fun that way.

Oryx Steppes isn't Hell.

NT

The best area in the game is Eastern Road.

You ever find the lion corpse?

NT

asd

I don't have so specific a list, but there are definitely things I would change. Basically this is a list of things that annoy me personally. Off the top of my head:

1. Fix the lag issue. Not a deal killer, but annoying nevertheless.

2. Eliminate or significantly reduce the randomness of Shifter form assignment. Balance them accordingly if it turns out players value certain forms way more more than others.

3. Give edge points for all the various things we hope players will do when they roll a character, but do so in a way that avoids the incentive to "game" any one source. Sources include but are not limited to: exploration, observation, PK, hours played, ranking to hero, role exp, imm exp, cabal leadership and "exceptional dedication to one's cabal" (*).

4. This one's a big ask and not something I've fully thought through, but: re-balance classes and remove preps with the goal of minimizing the "prep advantage". When there's a big advantage to be had by spending a lot of time farming things, some players will feel compelled to make sure they seize that advantage. They might actually enjoy the game more if there was no such advantage to be had. Or, if the advantage were less significant but also required less time investment.

5. Consider changing up skill improvements. I'm torn on this one. I get that you don't want it to be trivial to roll a character and get straight 100's. That said, certain skills seem to require an unhealthy amount of spamming. That, or you need to figure out some pathological way to practice them that confers a dramatic speed up in the rate of improvement. Here I'm thinking about times when I've "sparred" with a cabal mate in order to spam up stuff like parting block, parting blow, cheap shot, etc. That's super cheesy, but it's also super useful.

6. Juice movement regen rates even more for low-level characters. It's good that these characters can't run all the way across the world without having to rest. It's the length of time they have to rest that's annoying. I'll spam somewhere then have to sleep for ~6-8 game hours to get back to full movement. Alternately, you could make it cheaper to "heal refresh" at healers, though that doesn't help ragers and outlander pledges.

7. Do something about the Outlander raid defense dynamic where Outlanders have an incentive to take enemy cabals' items then sit chamo'd for hours on end waiting to ambush whomever comes to retrieve.


(*) I would automatically award a modest amount of imm exp to any character who passes some fairly high threshold of cabal exp. Only maybe half of all long-lived cabaled characters should ever reach this threshold.

#5 I can totally get behind. Times when that was the main perk of playing a high int race are kinda gone with the dex changes. I'd be for all races having a flat amount that is the current 25 int. And maybe bump it up to be like the 50% bonus times as default.

>I don't have so specific a list, but there are definitely
>things I would change. Basically this is a list of things
>that annoy me personally. Off the top of my head:
>
>1. Fix the lag issue. Not a deal killer, but annoying
>nevertheless.

Being able to run the production process under a profiler would've helped a lot with this since the problem didn't seem to be reliably reproducible on a test port with no players, but unfortunately that wasn't something I could do. And of course eyeballing hundreds of thousands of lines of code isn't worth the time for anyone, frankly.

>2. Eliminate or significantly reduce the randomness of Shifter
>form assignment. Balance them accordingly if it turns out
>players value certain forms way more more than others.

I get it, but I totally disagree. CF has enough classes these days that it's okay if a couple just don't jive with some people at a fundamental level. Doubly so now that empowerment is optional. If shapeshifters aren't for you then so be it. They're for some people, obviously, since they're the second most popular class or something like that.

>3. Give edge points for all the various things we hope
>players will do when they roll a character, but do so in a way
>that avoids the incentive to "game" any one source. Sources
>include but are not limited to: exploration, observation, PK,
>hours played, ranking to hero, role exp, imm exp, cabal
>leadership and "exceptional dedication to one's cabal" (*).

Agree.

>4. This one's a big ask and not something I've fully thought
>through, but: re-balance classes and remove preps with the
>goal of minimizing the "prep advantage". When there's a big
>advantage to be had by spending a lot of time farming things,
>some players will feel compelled to make sure they seize that
>advantage. They might actually enjoy the game more if there
>was no such advantage to be had. Or, if the advantage were
>less significant but also required less time investment.

Someone (I can't remember who, but if you see this feel free to take credit) once suggested removing most preps and forcing characters to rely more on their class abilities and the abilities of their allies. This would obviously require a significant amount of one-on-one class refactoring too, but if I had ever had a couple months off work for some reason that would've been a project I would've liked to tackle, assuming it got the necessary support.

>5. Consider changing up skill improvements. I'm torn on this
>one. I get that you don't want it to be trivial to roll a
>character and get straight 100's. That said, certain skills
>seem to require an unhealthy amount of spamming. That, or you
>need to figure out some pathological way to practice them that
>confers a dramatic speed up in the rate of improvement. Here
>I'm thinking about times when I've "sparred" with a cabal mate
>in order to spam up stuff like parting block, parting blow,
>cheap shot, etc. That's super cheesy, but it's also super
>useful.

Skill improvement is almost trivial already. Granted, it can require some risk (e.g., hanging out in places people are definitely going to come looking for you) but I regularly saw people perfecting skills very very quickly, even with low int.

In fact, I'm inclined to say that for average to high int builds it should be slower now.

EDIT: I guess I'm more thinking about defenses and *most* combat skills. I definitely agree that certain specific skills can be tough without a partner or a very particular gimmick.

>6. Juice movement regen rates even more for low-level
>characters. It's good that these characters can't run all the
>way across the world without having to rest. It's the length
>of time they have to rest that's annoying. I'll spam
>somewhere then have to sleep for ~6-8 game hours to get back
>to full movement. Alternately, you could make it cheaper to
>"heal refresh" at healers, though that doesn't help ragers and
>outlander pledges.

Eh. It's already pretty amazing. It certainly doesn't need to be better in PK scenarios, and for everything else there's tons of mv regen gear such, including every piece (or damn close) of fine leather IIRC. And you can replace all of that with pieces that provide mv regen as well as other useful affects as well.

I've played quite a few 1-30 characters since Umiron died and have actually been a little concerned how convenient and efficient it was roaming all over hunting for gear, doing quests, etc.

>7. Do something about the Outlander raid defense dynamic where
>Outlanders have an incentive to take enemy cabals' items then
>sit chamo'd for hours on end waiting to ambush whomever comes
>to retrieve.

I don't disagree that it's a cheesy dynamic but I just never saw it occur as often as people claimed. Maybe it does, though.

That said, this is something that someone could build around if they really cared to. I assume people don't simply because they aren't willing to.

>
> *) I would automatically award a modest amount of imm exp to
>any character who passes some fairly high threshold of cabal
>exp. Only maybe half of all long-lived cabaled characters
>should ever reach this threshold.

Brondalorm had nearly everything useful mastered in about 120 hrs.

That's with ####ty dwarf int.

At one point I started logging every time a character perfects a skill (or spell), along with their level, hours, int, group size, the area they were in and the mob they were fighting.

Letting that run for a while pretty much put that issue to bed for me.

I don't think "100s" are as important as some people insist they are, but if that's what a player wants then it's a very doable goal at very low hours / level. At least it is for dozens of characters per month.

Personally, I'll PK with stuff at 75%

That being said, I usually like to get "important" stuff in the 90s. Ever since Valg changed learning rates back in like '07 or '08 though it hasn't ever really been an issue.

Oddly, the only character I ever had an issue with it was an Elf Warrior. Just had the worst luck with skill gains/learn from mistakes (as in, they like never happened).

People like to master stuff because it gives them more "piece of mind" when they use the skills in a PK situation. As in, if you're using flurry (for example) at 75% in a PK, you're not going to have as much faith it will give you a 6-8 hitter as you would if it's at 100%.

>Personally, I'll PK with stuff at 75%

And you have my thanks for that.

Note: not trying to get the last word here. Just have some more thoughts.

>Being able to run the production process under a profiler
>would've helped a lot with this since the problem didn't seem
>to be reliably reproducible on a test port with no players,

Was the overhead just too much? One possibility is to flip the production process into profiler mode for ~20 minutes during the period of the night when there are the fewest players online. If, that is, that's little enough activity for it to run in profiler mode w/o being totally unplayable. The lag I noticed seemed to be present even even when there were few players online.

>If shapeshifters aren't for you then so be it.
>They're for some people, obviously, since they're the second
>most popular class or something like that.

It could be that people are playing the class despite the inability to pick forms. That, or they're ranking up to get their major/minor 4th tier forms, rolling/spinning, then deleting if they don't get something they like and starting all over again. In other words they're "gaming" the system to eliminate the randomness and choose the forms they want (or something close).

If the class is "too popular" without the randomness then just tone down the forms people start picking at disproportionately high rates. That should dampen some of the enthusiasm.

>EDIT: I guess I'm more thinking about defenses and *most*
>combat skills. I definitely agree that certain specific
>skills can be tough without a partner or a very particular
>gimmick.

Yeah, I definitely wasn't talking about defenses. Except maybe for classes that get two out of parry/dodge/block but not all three, i.e. aren't great at tanking. Anti-paladins and thieves. Maybe warriors that are both dumb and non-tanky.

Mostly I was thinking about stuff that's not easily used while ranking and/or requires you to spend money. Poisoner stuff, scrolls / arcane lore, binder skills (unless you have a group willing to sit there while you try to bind/tie/truss up mobs), parting blow, all cutoff-like skills, steal, etc.

>It {movement regen} certainly doesn't need to be better in PK scenarios

Could maybe raise regen but only when combat adrenaline isn't high.

>Note: not trying to get the last word here. Just have some
>more thoughts.
>
>>Being able to run the production process under a profiler
>>would've helped a lot with this since the problem didn't
>seem
>>to be reliably reproducible on a test port with no players,
>
>Was the overhead just too much? One possibility is to flip
>the production process into profiler mode for ~20 minutes
>during the period of the night when there are the fewest
>players online. If, that is, that's little enough activity
>for it to run in profiler mode w/o being totally unplayable.
>The lag I noticed seemed to be present even even when there
>were few players online.

That's not something I could either.

My best guess was the problem is simply that as CF grew in the number of "things" it was processing (mobs, objs, rooms, affects, progs, etc.) a number of critical loops that used to consistently finish within the thresholds required increased in how long they take. That, combined with years and years of coders adding features without ever concerning themselves with performance, allowed certain key functions to creep from acceptable runtimes to occasionally going over, which often results in a tick (or other tick-like function) taking noticeably longer than it should.

For me, anyway, that's a problem that takes a comparatively long time to troubleshoot versus working on a few random bugs from the queue or coding something that's actually fun for me to work on. Doubly so when getting new software installed or making configuration changes on the box was possible but inconvenient. So I tended to focus on the latter where I could make progress a few minutes at a time when I had the time/desire to do so.

Plus, as a player, I really don't notice it much. It certainly hasn't cost me a death or a PK yet.


>>If shapeshifters aren't for you then so be it.
>>They're for some people, obviously, since they're the second
>>most popular class or something like that.
>
>It could be that people are playing the class despite
>the inability to pick forms. That, or they're ranking up to
>get their major/minor 4th tier forms, rolling/spinning, then
>deleting if they don't get something they like and starting
>all over again. In other words they're "gaming" the system to
>eliminate the randomness and choose the forms they want (or
>something close).
>
>If the class is "too popular" without the randomness then just
>tone down the forms people start picking at disproportionately
>high rates. That should dampen some of the enthusiasm.

I guess the point was that the randomness is the point. Where pretty much every other class with the exception of shaman gets to hand craft their build, shapeshifters are provided the opportunity to be particularly effective without some of the prereqs that most classes have (e.g., the game knowledge to spec out the build, access to lots of specific gear, and other things).

How the class works is a core, deliberate part of its design and what allows CF to advertise it has X unique classes instead of X-1.

I hate to be that guy, but as Dest (I think?) said... if you want to be able to do pretty much anything a shifter with specifics forms can do, you can effectively guarantee that functionality by playing a specific build of something else.

>>EDIT: I guess I'm more thinking about defenses and *most*
>>combat skills. I definitely agree that certain specific
>>skills can be tough without a partner or a very particular
>>gimmick.
>
>Yeah, I definitely wasn't talking about defenses. Except
>maybe for classes that get two out of parry/dodge/block but
>not all three, i.e. aren't great at tanking. Anti-paladins
>and thieves. Maybe warriors that are both dumb and
>non-tanky.
>
>Mostly I was thinking about stuff that's not easily used while
>ranking and/or requires you to spend money. Poisoner stuff,
>scrolls / arcane lore, binder skills (unless you have a group
>willing to sit there while you try to bind/tie/truss up mobs),
>parting blow, all cutoff-like skills, steal, etc.

Some of these have "tricks" and others don't, but I think it's one of the few areas outside of very specific builds (e.g., STSF) where high int is still a huge advantage.

>>It {movement regen} certainly doesn't need to be better in PK
>scenarios
>
>Could maybe raise regen but only when combat adrenaline isn't
>high.

It's a judgement call and I just couldn't convince myself there was a compelling reason to. This is only one of those things (like experience) that some people are going to ask for no matter how many times it changes in their favor.

Again, I've been playing a lot of lowbies lately, and one of my biggest takeaways so far has been that it's not only way too easy, but the investment is so low I'm way too willing to start over if I die, get bored, or just change my mind about what I want to play. The latter being the case for me half a dozen times now. I wonder if 1-15 specifically wasn't so damn pleasant I might not be so willing to do it over and over again.

Just not when I get ram for the 1901282347th time. And I like Ram!

Also, you're right about 11-15 (I'd actually say 11-30).

Other than Bron, my favorite characters of the last 2 years have all been lowbies that didn't make it past 35. Including my assassin where I realized how insane they were

I'm sorry I know you're going to say that's not constructive but I couldn't help myself. Slower mastery? Less moves? No preps? Reworking a system that people have invested years in becoming comfortable with? You may as well just rename it Casual Fields at that point.

You're entitled to your opinion and Sam is entitled to his and the that incoherent crazy asshole a couple threads down is entitled to his.

That's what makes this MUD great, its diverse community of passionate players (and non-players, as it were)!

I need to go read incoherent crazy asshole's posts I skipped over them before.

If I'm not back in 30 minutes send help.

I was not arguing for slower mastery or less moves. I was, however, arguing for less preps. Imagine if warriors didn't have to spend half their time cycling through all their prep locations keeping their stocks up.

> Imagine if warriors didn't
>have to spend half their time cycling through all their prep
>locations keeping their stocks up.

Since you said "cycling through prep locations" I'm going to assume you're not counting the really basic buyable stuff like fly and detect invis.

So given that, only a small fraction of warriors are affected by the other kind of affects at the time they land the majority of their kills. (I'm talking about stuff like aura, shield, stone skin, protection, haste, etc.).

So "have to" might be hyperbolic.

Which is to say that most warriors don't have this experience, or if they do, they're prep affects aren't lasting through the fight 90% of the time.

They're barely viable with aura & stoneskin. If that was removed, warriors would become a total joke.

I've fought unprepped warriors as a bard and ABS shifter, and they were always easy pickings.

And I was wielding a ####ing spear the whole time

That said, you still killed me with piercing dissonance spam

You died to feign weakness, not piercing dissonance spam.

Also, I'm not denying that warriors can kill people. They can, and do very well at it. But they also die themselves very easily, too.

Warriors are like a somewhat milder version of the glass cannon that is the A-P.

But some builds, once they get a certain set of gear, become a lot more than that.

Hexugar (not the frost giant dude who just deleted, that delf scout polearm dude in BATTLE) had a build that was super scary for a lot of players.

PS Murph, you're not exactly the best judge on what's scary, since you die like 10 total times in PK in 700 hrs with most of your characters I mean, you know I love you, but you're the definition of a conservative prep-whore

Not to mention he was a scout with dispelling critical, which basically turned me into an unprepped guy vs his rager powers.

But anyway, you can't counter my argument on unprepped warriors by citing a rager. They aren't exactly "unprepped", you know.

And one who CANNOT use magic.

None of us ever succeeded in taking the head vs Hexugar. He was also played by someone very skilled and with good sense when to GTFO because we could never gank him either.

That doesn't mean warriors aren't glass cannons.

If they were so good, anyone could be able to replicate a Hexugar.

HYENA POWAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

>- The legacies Fortress of the Spirit (has this been picked
>in the last 3 years by any warrior?!?!?), Place of the Raging
>River, and Vanguard's Desire become highly expensive edges.
>None of those legacies get much traction, none seem OP at all
>if switched into edges. However, you can only choose 1 of
>them (so you can't take all 3).

Eh. I don't disagree that they're less attractive legacies, but I don't think making them edges fixes a problem in need of a solution. Place is also a wonderful choice for a new(er) player who specifically struggles against that particular thing.

>- The edge Parry Anything becomes a legacy. Could even fold
>it into something like One with Shadows.

It probably makes more sense to just tone Parry Anything down some more so that it's a more of "oh cool, I parried that!" kind of thing instead of a "that's ####ing ####, why didn't I parry that?!" kind of thing.

>- The edges Ehren Soul/Ehren Lord become a combined Legacy
>called Ehren Warrior.

Same as above. The Ehren stuff is great if that's the thing you want to invest in. In this case though, I think the reality is more that even people who claim to like these edges actually like/need to gang more than they want to say, even if it's just in raid scenarios and stuff where it totally makes sense. And that's fine.

>- The edges Seven Winds of Hamsah Mu'Tazz/Reckoning of the
>Mongoose become more expensive.

I don't think any of the already expensive edges need to get more expensive, they just need to get less reliable. Ideally without telling anyone because #### the haters.

>- Assassins lose the ability to hide in Mountains and Hills
> it doesn't make sense to me that assassins are better at
>stealth than both thieves and rangers...who main allure is
>that they are supposed to be stealthy).

I could get behind this. It wouldn't be popular, though.

>- An edge/flaw is introduced into the game called Eternal
>Damnation. This edge/flaw will be automatically given to any
>character that ####s the Bull in Hell. It will function like
>Ancestral Curse, in that it will periodically damn you for a
>short duration at random times. However, it will also
>increase regen rates by 15% while within Hell proper. It
>never made sense to me that Hell is basically a total win/win
> with no drawbacks save perhaps 1/3 CON) for any evil/neutral
>character that goes there, short of Tongni losing AP weapons
>down there.

Eh.

>- Beastmaster Tame becomes useful at hero ranges.

FWIW, it's not that bad. You just can't approach it from the perspective of "I should be able to tame anything that I think makes sense" and more from the perspective that there are quite a few attractive tame mobs that are going to be wonderful in PK for those who can find them. A pretty decent one was added within the last year or so.

>- Thieves gain edge points for heroing (allowing hero thieves
>to choose Devious Versatility).

No thanks. If hero thief isn't on the money (which I don't necessarily think is true) then there are better ways of "fixing" that then throwing points at them, which is way harder to control from a balance perspective than other means.

>- Shapeshifters at 51 gain the ability to have up to 3 partial
>shifts up.

I don't think this would be a big deal but I haven't really thought it through either.

>- Transmuters gain 100 xp penalty.

Or more.

>- Assassins gain 100 xp penalty.

Or more.

>- The "Ale" edges for dwarves become part of the class build.
>Dwarves are terrible for a lot of builds. This gives dwarves
>an incentive to be drunk, and who doesn't like that?

This is neither necessary or unnecessary in my opinion.

>- STSF loses cutoff.

I could get behind this or something like it.

>- Trance loses cutoff. It sucks that the most powerful
>ability of a thief/polearm warrior can be replicated by a
>legacy/skill. Make polearms/thug thieves much more valuable
>and desirable for PK.

I could get behind this too.

>- HeroIMM's gain more abilities, such as the ability to
>interact with players + give IMM xp + take over mobs (but not
>keep IMM powers while within the mob). I feel bad for a
>majority of HeroIMMs, especially ones who haven't gone through
>the process. Perhaps tie this to their area writing, as in if
>they finish 50% of their area then these abilities are
>"unlocked". I really don't see a ton of incentive for anyone
>who doesn't code to want to be an IMM at the moment, perhaps
>this would change it. I can't roll any new characters, can't
>post on an unofficial forum, and have to spend 99.9% of my
>time writing an area/reading roles? No thanks.

I'd rather not. The process has evolved / is evolving, but there still has to be some period during which people are vetted and earn their stripes before they have the ability to do largely irreversible things to PC (which tends to upset you folks when it goes wrong, for many definitions of wrong).

>- New Edges: Keep Barrier/Keep Aura/Keep Shield added to all
>mages choosable edge list, though these are mutually exclusive
> and VERY expensive). This allows a mage to set one of their
>locations for one of these sleek wands (as in, say I have an
>sleek amber in XXXX, before I gather it I discuss Keep Aura
>and now that amber will ALWAYS be my amber spot). Not only
>would this give IMMs a data point to look at balancing wand
>spots, I think it would open a lot of tactical choices.
>Personally, I'd rather have a supremely useful aura spot than
>a barrier spot, so I don't think it would be OP at all. Not
>only that, you'd still have to do "the search" until you found
>THAT SPOT you wanted to keep, so it would keep people
>exploring.

No thanks.

>- Rant channel unlocked. Rant channel will not be able to be
>seen by anyone but the player ranting, not even by IMMs,
>however, it would allow players to lose their #### OOC without
>ruining a character. As of now, if a player loses their ####,
>they either do it IC (that's bad), on newbie (that's also
>bad), or by pray (that's really bad).

#### no.

>- Hunter rangers gain a skill (stealing this from Dallevian)
>called Falconry. It would cost 150 mana, 168 hr cooldown, but
>it would allow a Hunter a summon a falcon to give them the
>location of any targetted prey for 4 hrs (would function
>somewhat like Imperial Spies).

Nah.

>- More Galadon mercs! Have a merc of ALL RACES in Galadon,
>and have the gnome merc be an invoker (only touches + low
>level spells like cyclone), the felar merc be a ranger (can
>camo), the duergar merc be a thief (gets hide), etc. Would
>allow for newbies that use these mercs to better understand
>the abilities of each race/class.

I don't think so. CF supports special/limited mercs that can be used to provide more interesting mercenaries, but what you're describing would have a bigger impact on PK than you think.

>- Make the Copenham Inn a "newbie" cabal. Maybe move XXXXXX,
>that one mob who progs a crapload of quests, to the Copenham,
>so newbies would constantly get quests to learn more about the
>game/preps/locations. This "cabal" would not have an item or
>a guardian, you could totally get attacked inside, but all
>members of the cabal get 25% dam reduction and lag protection
>while within the Copenham so it would keep them somewhat
>"safe". Make the bartender sell low level preps like detect
>invis/enlarge/reduce/word of recall/etc (as drinks/food) only
>usable by the members of said "newbie" cabal.

I'm not in love with the details of this implementation in particular but I've always liked the idea of having a "Newbie cabal" type thing. Something between this and Scar's MILITIA idea (which he's posted about publicly before) sounds like a good idea. There are a lot of inherent problems to solve related to it that would need to be thought through before implementing it would smart, though.

>- I can't really think of any more...

Real talk, thanks for the feedback.

If those ideas bat .300 (30%) I'll be happy.

I can totally accept that "my idea" of CF isn't compatable with everyone else's idea. That being said, there are some things that could use a small tweak here or there, and if you don't post "solutions" to those problems and just bitch about them, you're not helping anyone.

Edited to add: Also, re: Scar - MILITIA, yeah, most of these ideas are cribbed from other people's ideas and/or talks I've had with players on Dio's or just at the bar or sess-circle

PS I really liked my Eternal Damnation edge idea

Granted, you seem much happier now, but CF kind needs you at the moment.

Look, I've always said that if it isn't fun, delete (and this got misconstrued many times by sensitive IMMs sadly).

The game is supposed to be fun. If you're not having fun, delete, switch up the dynamic, try to find your happy place (just hopefully Shooter McGavin doesn't show up).

>>- Shapeshifters at 51 gain the ability to have up to 3
>partial
>>shifts up.
>
>I don't think this would be a big deal but I haven't really
>thought it through either.

No, like never! You'll get paws of cheetah + horns of bull on a felar shifter across 50 hitroll spamming you with some nasty ass lagging wands in no time.

2 utility partials should not be, even less so 3, because you'll eat snake bite at the same time.

Staff of striking/eagle staff + paws + horns!

A perfect utility form for a defense/defense shifter.

Dude, you're drunk again.

Don't forget it's unblockable, so yes, that is totally going to PK someone.

More than once.

It's nice, but it's not OP at all.

It hits ~ 1 every 3-4 rounds, for a MANGLE (if mastered). Yes it's unblockable, but it doesn't bypass dam reduction at all.

PS What ####ing unshifted shifter has 50 hitroll or damroll (like you claimed in another post)? Don't worry, I'll wait for you to explain that comment.

>It hits ~ 1 every 3-4 rounds, for a MANGLE (if mastered). Yes
>it's unblockable, but it doesn't bypass dam reduction at all.

Well, for a person who plays for 20 years, it surprises me that you didn't get to know the basic mechanics behind the horns. You can easily get a MANGLE each round.

Yeah, sometimes it hits 3 rounds in a row, sometimes it hits like 1 time in 6 rounds.

Yeah, if you juice some things you can maybe increase the frequency, but again, you're losing out on a TON of other things (that are frankly more important) if you do that.

That being said, it's why I think allowing multiple partial shifts would open up shifter play considerably. As it is right now, gearing strategies for shifters are nearly completely static and homogenous, everyone goes HP, saves, stats. And that's it.

I managed to do an each round EVISCERATE-DISMEMBER on a 20 level shifter, outdamaging my offense form by a slight margin.

And it's not "maybe increase the frequence", there's direct correlation involved.

Adding paws of cheetah to that on a high dex shifter will make that too good.

OMG I needed this laugh.

Thanks buddy

Even if you don't make sense.

NT

>>It hits ~ 1 every 3-4 rounds, for a MANGLE (if mastered).
>Yes
>>it's unblockable, but it doesn't bypass dam reduction at
>all.
>
>Well, for a person who plays for 20 years, it surprises me
>that you didn't get to know the basic mechanics behind the
>horns. You can easily get a MANGLE each round.

If you had 25 dex and geared exclusively for hitroll you might be able to get a horn attack up to 70% of rounds, but realistically it's more like 50% at best.

With 22 strength, which I think is the best any shapeshifter could do, the base damage (i.e. no vuln) can go as high as a MANGLE, but only on the very low end and that's with the best dice roll possible. At hero the average is probably going to be somewhere around a medium/strong MASSACRE.

And remember that 70% chance means you can easily get 8-10 round streaks which may amount to about 1000 hp total. Now add paws of cheetah and a staff of striking.

Being able to switch forms.

That's a very very viable build. I'd say it can terrorize almost all ranges quite easily.

PS You do realize that yellowjacket hits for 2-3 MANGLES a round and has flyto, right? And you can get it at like level 24?

Also, you gravely overestimate the ability of a staff of striking to lag people. Also, how the #### are level 18 shifters going to grab it all easy-like?

A hero shifter out of form is usually a free PK. Horns of the Bull up + paws doesn't change that.

Again, you have second attack (and that's all...not to mention second attack may be at like 76% if you don't have a form that uses it to increase the skill), a middling dodge (assuming paws), terrible parry and no other defenses.

Sure, you have ABS, but honestly, Murph is the only shifter player I know who wouldn't die out of form in 99% of PK situations, and that's mainly because he rolls super deep with preppage and knows when to GTFO more than anyone.

Tell you what Boris. You roll up a shifter and get 50 PKs unshifted, and I'll admit you're right in front of God and everyone else.

>Tell you what Boris. You roll up a shifter and get 50 PKs
>unshifted, and I'll admit you're right in front of God and
>everyone else.

Throw something material on top of that and I'll consider playing a class I don't like solely for the purpose of wiping that smirk off your face.

Gotcha.

PS I've done it. I've bitched about STSF, then played a STSF warrior (and still think STSF needs toned down). I've bitched about goodies acting "not good-like" and then played goodies who died for their allies/beliefs. I thought Cheetah was OP when it was first implemented, talked to Zulg, and got it slightly nerfed (sorry gais). People used to think lowbie mages were under-powered, I disagreed and rolled a transmuter who rocked a 90% ratio without being caballed and taking on gangs and not multi-killing. Etc etc etc.

Put your rubles where your mouth is, Boris. That's the way you get cred/respect in this game.

If you don't understand the sinergy of ABS + haste + parry + dodge + auto damage + wands + word of recall + shapeshift.

Not my problem.

I'm super confused why you would even add that to your argument?

Hasted parry is not ####ty, same.
And hasted 23 dodge is not ####ty as well.

1) Hasted parry with 17-20 strength does kinda suck, especially since shifters get whip/staff/dagger/exotic, none of which parry especially well (well, exotics do, but only at 51).

2) Human/Half-Elf/Half-Drow/Svirf/Gnome shifters do not have 23 dex. Nuff said.

3) You still have not shown me any facts.

>1) Hasted parry with 17-20 strength does kinda suck,
>especially since shifters get whip/staff/dagger/exotic, none
>of which parry especially well (well, exotics do, but only at
>51).

Hell Sam. Listing the best parrying weapon among others and saying "none of which parry especially well" makes your words incredibly credible.


>2) Human/Half-Elf/Half-Drow/Svirf/Gnome shifters do not have
>23 dex. Nuff said.

Now let's play a game of guessing what shifter race does. Oh and this race also has a racial bonus on paws of cheetah. Hmm hmm.


>3) You still have not shown me any facts.

Address Matrik about those.

I believe you are trying to say that you think more than 1 partial shift up would be OP at hero if you were a felar shapeshifter? Right? I disagree.

You mentioned staff of striking multiple times as "proof" of this. Felar shapeshifters (and NO SHAPESHIFTERS PERIOD) can't wield that staff and use wands, which you'd know if you ever played a shapeshifter and tried to PK someone out of form.

About a felar shifter with an exotic wielded and at level 51 with full ABS...well that's a super rare situation. Perhaps it would be OP, I'm not sure. I'd need to play a few more felar shifters and playtest it (something you want more IMMs to do, but sadly not yourself).

So basically, in a super rare situation, it's OP.

Well then Boris, wouldn't assassins be OP when tranced and with the ground fighter edge? I'm just using your "logic" against you, putting up a similar comparison.

But I remember you posting many times that assassins in that situation aren't OP.

ABS does not.

You're aware that partial shifts don't transfer between forms, right?

Why did you bring that up?

Making it seem like you thought partial shifts carry over in form.

Don't bring your fantasies into my posts. Having shapeshift means you have additional versatility.

Zap Zap "strike for the seas" flyto rake whatever.

Started in 2004.

are meh.
Even staff of striking is meh for lagging.

It would be a very survivable char, but probably still not as PK-tastic as a good ole gorilla or lion.

So yeah, it would be a very survivable char who also kicks ass as a shapeshifter.

The versatility would be way too much.

You do realize that anyone with the scroll command used to be able to have a partial shift up + whatever class abilities they got?

That existed for years before Murph ruined it for Elystan and other Bard/AP players.

I feel like for all your love of PK, you still don't understand class balance re: PK.

Oh yes I did.


>That existed for years before Murph ruined it for Elystan and
>other Bard/AP players.

That happened exactly because those scrolls were broken and were not utilized much. Partial shifts are very powerful, and you propose to have two of them simultaneously.

Boris, I need facts, not beliefs.

Which makes shifters seem super lame/weak in comparison.

Because partial forms are decent bonuses, but not much on just a shifter.

On a bard, AP, warrior, etc it was too much.

It's like saying haste is OP or super strong because they took haste potions out. Nope. Haste was too strong *on warriors.*