Crusader - Block Storm from High Sight.

The original game had it set up like that because they didn't have the vision, time, or know how to make it better. So they did what they did and we have been playing catchup ever since. For the first time, fl has a serious, longstanding, legit coder. The whole viability of  various class/race combos- this is EXACTLY what we should be looking at. I dunno about you lot but I'm tired of rolling the same old things and seeing the same old combos ALL THE TiME!!! Why shouldn't a human learn how to outmaneuver a giant? Why shouldn't a gnome or elf? If fricken giants can be communers wtf is it so hard to believe smaller classes could be melees? And don't say effing blademasters. That's not the same. That's a broken fix to a larger problem.

I totally agree that there could and should be better balance. I have been advocating for viability of all combos for a while now. I also am among the people who try weaker combos for fun because power gaming bores me.

That being said just giving everyone a counter to their bane is also not balance and I wanted to point that out.

I agree there. We should be adding new fun stuff to the less played to as to get a better variety. Imo anyway. 

Ive always hated rolling power combos. Both for rp and gaming reasons. I don't like high fantasy rp (Giants, faeries, lizardmen, etc) and being a power gamer has always felt cheap to me. But hey you're talking to the dude who plays melees that aren't Giants lol.

Back to the point though saders don't need to be nerfed anymore than they have been. And infact most branches desperately need a bump.

Id say across the board non giant melees need a boost. Perhaps half the diminishing returns to ac to pure melee.... not ninjas lol sorry kotrag.

As a community we should list what we want to see around the corner. Then discuss the changes we want implementing and then leave it into the hands of the imms from there on a monthly or weekly basis.

Too often we have fallen to pointing out what is OP or garbage on whim. That's my soju fueled opinion tho.

5 hours ago, f0xx said:

Ewww

That's the worst advise you can give to someone....

Right, cuz the alternative of staying and playing (take your lumps and pad my pk record) would be more fun... 

Its probably just me but I'd prefer someone rolled a character to fight me rather then ignored me and logged off every time I log on.

23 minutes ago, Atticus said:

Perhaps half the diminishing returns to ac to pure melee....

I have a better idea. Remove the herb of flight. That way leg works two ways.

Removing the herb of flight isn't gonna fix anything. It can be toned but there are other things that requires it and people are just used to it. The horses are out of the barn on that one. Too late to shut the doors now. Besides. Adding stuff gives more flavor than removing. Bump the smaller guys in their own special way befitting their race class combo.

3 hours ago, Manual Labour said:

Not every combo is supposed to have a fair fight against every other combo. There have already been measure implemented to stop 100-0 slam lock.

The precedent you want to set here is a dangerous one, where does it end? Giants got tired of being dispelled so they learned how to lobotomize mages.  Everyone got tired of rogues so they learned how to sense motion etc etc

As a small melee character, you have 2 vulns when facing a giant melee. Whatever your racial vuln is, Physical/Fire/Water/Air, and the arguably easier avoidable vuln to Size based skills like bash.

Dwarves in particular have the worst chances here. Because dex helps to avoid bashes, and of all the small races dwarven dex provides almost no protection from the bash. Some might argue that dwarven HP is the balancing factor. But 1300 HP melts away before that FOURTH slam if your opponent has 80/80, so even the FIX you mention does not help the dwarven warriors/berserkers.

Without Cabal Skills those two combos are severely under powered. Keep in mind, Blademasters have predict, and the clerics have the protective shield.

Halfling Melees, due to the new vuln, have become obsolete as well. While it may not be bashes killing them. So the halflings  melees would likely develop a skill like uncanny dodge.

Uncanny Dodge

Syntax: Automatic

Halflings have learned to contort their bodies and bend like reeds in the wind to avoid enemy swings allowing them to completely avoid one attack every round.

As for where does it end? Hopefully somewhere closer to a balance than the current state.

Agree with you on this @Manual Labour, it should stop. But  disagree on the notion that small melees should be fodder to every giant melee. Sure give them a nemesis, but not more than 10.

Warriors - Stone, Storm, Fire, Ogre, Minotaur

Berserker - Stone, Storm, Fire, Ogre, Minotaur

Crusader - Storm

That's eleven, I rest my case.

Edit: Forgot one point.

No Giant has even been dispel locked to death. :rofl: So your lobotomy comparison is a swing and a miss.

Sounds like there's a lot of things going on. I'm certainly out of touch when it comes to present details. I have no idea what "it doesn't work with rp points and the edges and the nudging towards longevity" means. Sounds unpleasant.

But I find it interesting that so many say that the problems are solved by adding this or that when the problem was caused by previous additions.

For example, some of the balancing in the "good ol' days" was accomplished with experience penalties. But these days, if what I read is true, you can get from 20 to 50 in a day using guild quests. So the penalty has been somewhat nullified by other mechanics.

Not judging, I don't know enough. Just reminding you that the law of unintended consequences is a pain. 

And there are other contributing factors like the size of the player base. W/o a full complement of characters, many combinations won't have to face their nemesis. Balance is the hardest thing about any game like this.

Very good point. @myrek its good to "see" you around again.

Try elves/drow, all the negatives you describe without the health or strength to help balance. I'm of the mind we should be trying to make as many combos viable as possible, rather than relying on what has or hasn't been the case.

As far as the overall atmosphere, I would say it is trending toward longevity. Though I honestly see that as a completion of the promise that this is an rp enforced pk mud, not the other way around. It just so happened in days past there was no conceptual or practical way to reward rp on a consistent and accessible way.

I don't think it's necessarily good or bad, just a product of changing times and demands.

Well, my original idea was because of the combination of Giant Size and High Sight damage being to huge of a spike.

Regarding making normal size better melees, what I can say suggest is a new warrior lore.

I don't like the shield lore, because it forces you to use a shield, and non giants melees already have a lower melee potential.

My suggestion is a dodge lore. It would generically improve dodge to 110% or what is appropriate (non important).

And modify the number of max consecutive rounds lagged to size -1.

What this means is that the WARRIOR character with this lore instead of being only lagged for a maximum of 4-5 lands. It would be less.

Normal: 4 max bashes before 100% miss (this is what we have now, or close enough)

Size 0: Every bash will always fail (Faeries)

Size 1: 1 bashes then fail (Gnome, Halfling)

Size 2: 2 bashes then fail (Human, elf.)

This means that faerie warriors never get lagged by bash/bodyslam. You can't even roll one.

Gnomes and Halfling will get bashed probably for 4 rounds, then opponent misses 3 rounds, then he can bash again.

Humans, will get bashed 2 times and then it would always miss.

We could also in ALTERNATIVE, dodge lore reduce the max lag to 2 rounds. Pretty easy.

If you don't want to be bashed then roll a same sized race or class that can't be bashed. I have no idea why anyone would roll an inferior melee race and then complain that the bigger melee races (elf vs giant) have advantages over them. Why don't we just allow giants to become invokers then listen to everyone complain that they should have less lag from spells because they have less mana. Thieves and ninjas 'should' have an evasion the skill to help prevent being bashlocked while smaller melee fighters have extra defenses and dex to get them through the grind. 

Try catching a giant without sanc and trip him, oh wait, we need to gimp trip like bash. Is anyone else tired of all these small races never missing a trip and laglocking your giants? I would like to see 4 rounds of lag on a missed trip instead of 1, that way when these little guys come in and try to trip lock giants there is actually an equal penalty.

Oh, and I also think that if we didn't cap melee hit roll we wouldn't have had to cap mages parry skill. Hard coding 'outs' IMO is always the wrong way to go where new skill implementation to combat imbalances should be top priority. Gimping tried and tested code like (bash, parry, hitroll) only frustrates people because x skill doesn't work properly when you need it, adding bash evasion skills, parry negation skills and hitroll lowering abilities would keep stale old underused classes fresh and competitive :)

Lol pretty high and mighty when seaweed gives flight for more than 2 days ig. What options do normal melees have? Right now an air lance. 1 hour every now and again they aren't flying. In all other rpg character based games the big  guys are bulky and stronger and the smaller are better at dodging and striking quickly. Access to flight at all for melee giants, particularly long lasting seaweed gives them all the benefits of their race with none of the negatives. Give me a 2 day protective shield herb to smoke for my smaller guys and we can call it a day. ;)

58 minutes ago, Vaerick said:

Lol pretty high and mighty when seaweed gives flight for more than 2 days ig. What options do normal melees have? Right now an air lance. 1 hour every now and again they aren't flying. In all other rpg character based games the big  guys are bulky and stronger and the smaller are better at dodging and striking quickly. Access to flight at all for melee giants, particularly long lasting seaweed gives them all the benefits of their race with none of the negatives. Give me a 2 day protective shield herb to smoke for my smaller guys and we can call it a day. ;)

I totally agree with you and think seaweed should last as long as a floating pill or flight potion. A flying giant warrior is the same as a protective shield elf warrior, if people saw elf warriors with protective shield they would cry OP pretty quickly ;)

Exactly. On a broader note I really think the more things that are viable the better. It gets boring playing and seeing the same old thing. If we were to balance based on the ideal vs non ideal within a genre, it wouldn't affect the broader game mechanics- only those between the peak and valley, for example giant vs small warriors. And then a lot more combos would be ok. People who want a challenge could go with a harder but now not impossible combo. I dunno exactly but there's a lot we could do.

13 hours ago, Vaerick said:

The whole viability of  various class/race combos- this is EXACTLY what we should be looking at.

11 hours ago, Atticus said:

Then discuss the changes we want implementing

Too often we have fallen to pointing out what is OP or garbage on whim.

13 hours ago, Manual Labour said:

I totally agree that there could and should be better balance. I have been advocating for viability of all combos for a while now. I also am among the people who try weaker combos for fun because power gaming bores me.

Examine combinations instead of individual classes, races and cabals? Viability among groups of combos considerations as a whole?? Exploring uncommon combos for design analysis??? Wanting to discuss what a poster has written instead of the poster themselves????

I thought my birthday was last month. I do appreciate it though, guys.

You had me going there for a minute! It sounds great, but then you remember that all this takes effort.

I'd be very happy to see more people doing these things. The threads fizzle out pretty quickly due to lack of investment (both players and staff, btw).

--

As for the stated problem of giant melees: The same races are the best at DPS, the best at surviving, the best at lagging, and the most versatile with equipment (esp. weapon selection). So, divide those functions more evenly among the races. Alternatively, scale races differently with cabal or class skills so as to balance those base advantages. Check out necros for a simple example.

There is potential in a developing a more advanced perk system to play a similar role in specialization as well beyond base race stats.