Gordy vs Godfrey

[Tantangel]

Most vulns are easily able to be landed on. With my multiple Undead races played, the holy vuln was pretty easy to overcome. And it has been stated by other players who deleted their own that Undead as a race heals ridiculously fast. Add in the fact that Gordy can acupuncture (healing quite a bit of HP on success and no downside outside of -4 DEX), he can also cure light wounds, and hide so he can take full advantage of that regen, and he does very effectively. I'm not sure if you were in the meeting or not, but currently apparently there is a look into such things as is. I've not played an Undead since the changes, but I never had an issue while playing them in the past and was rather quite on top against most people. Now they've got more perks going for them. It's not really unfounded knowledge, it's more of a combined knowledge of what I know of them before and what people have stated of them afterwards. If a Vampire were able to get that kind of regen just resting, I'm sure they'd more than likely have similar outcry to such things. I also pointed out the fact that the boost to Ninjas as a class comes into play as well, making basically a gang bang the only real sure solid way to win against him.

If you do not add in any of the +hitgain items in the game, they still heal very quickly, and lowering it even slightly would be a step in the right direction. What we have here is a class and race that had been redone, and often times those changes made the class a bit over the top in terms of PK. Add two of them together, and you're looking at powerhouse combo. Am I saying everyone can do it? No. But I bet even a horrible PKer could become average in such instances trying something similar as long as they have a good grasp of the mechanics of the class overall. I'm not saying hastily by any means, it's observance. And it has been proven that that is as effective as playing them when F0xx proved Ninjas needed toned down and was told repeatedly they were fine, then went on to steam roll everyone in the game before it was taken seriously. Nerfing any one of those things mentioned above will not destroy the class or the race at all. Not in any way whatsoever. They'd still have a good chance to win in battle even without the regen boost. Especially since you usually see someone who essentially uses a ton of AC so they have enough time to land the poison. If that's the sole thing a player relies on knowing that they're not in danger because if they absolutely have to, they throw it up, flee, hide, then come back at it ASAP. 600 HP is ridiculous if true. They're suggestions though. And if you combine hitgain items like the powerspring (+10), Ward Major (+15), heartgear (+5), moss scale (+10), Banner (+2), and more, you've just out healed almost everyone who isn't slowed down. But I guess that's all okay because it doesn't need to be toned down. Even if it's not just a healing thing for Undead, a lot of other things could be done to make it less painful.

Imagine if all Undead races were made to not be able to go invisible or hide though. Their rotting bodies being enough for even the least trained of noses could smell them a mile a way giving them off. That change would be more effective than even toning anything else down.

[Unknown Criminal]

To be honest.... F vulns if you have more resistances that the general population has a hard time defending from. So you got a stupid holy vuln? Well, you cant be blackjacked, strangled or slept which gives you a huge advantage vs 4-5 classes. You cant be haymakered or headbutted, thats 6 classes you advantage on. You have super healing with no mana usage? Well there goes a clerics gameplan so 7 classes you advantage. You cant be poisoned or plagued, so another immunity vs every class that can cast or commune or proc. Arrows dont bother you? Thats yet another huge immunity to every bow wielding class that cant get or doesnt know how to get holy arrows. You cant be attacked by any other undeads? Thats XXX classes that you are flat out immune to. 

Those poor undeads, huge bunch of crybabies if you asked me. What do you mean I cant be immune to absolutely everything, even my vuln? I have no respect for any undead chars with huge PK records, I think you are all taking advantage and picking on other classes who cant compete with this horseshit on a basic level. 

UC

 

[Kyzarius]

It's like Fotm around here.  More like gripe of the month.  Whoever is doing well in pk gets attacked.  Why I dont post logs anymore tbh.  If it's not undead. Its psi.  Not psi? Wm thieves.  Thieves? Nah, weapon cleaving zerks. Nah the rage is not fotm, kill the doubleseath ninja!!  Bards bards they cheat I swear! The list goes on and on and on.  Do well in FL pk, get a pk log posted, get attacked.  

[Unknown Brother]

9 hours ago, Unknown Criminal said:

Thats XXX classes

FL dlc? 

[Killfiend]

2 hours ago, Kyzarius said:

It's like Fotm around here.  More like gripe of the month.  Whoever is doing well in pk gets attacked.  Why I dont post logs anymore tbh.  If it's not undead. Its psi.  Not psi? Wm thieves.  Thieves? Nah, weapon cleaving zerks. Nah the rage is not fotm, kill the doubleseath ninja!!  Bards bards they cheat I swear! The list goes on and on and on.  Do well in FL pk, get a pk log posted, get attacked.  

The truest words I think I’ve ever read on this forum. I am mediocre at best in pk. And I’ve dealt with the majority of these cases on multiple combos without a lot of headache. The easy win button is not real. Let’s go with that eh?

[Iusedtobesomebody]

Life goes on. If it's bugged, it will get fixed. I've had strong characters, I've had characters that got roflstomped (gnome warrior Garlsbad lol) it's okay sometimes to play simply for the fun of the combo, or the RP behind it. It's not always about PK records.

[Tantangel]

Okay, so if toning things down very slightly over time to find the right balance to the change overall, you're one of the first people to jump on the, "We shouldn't be toning it down" button without giving it any second thought. You assume that suggested changes are changes that are believed to happen all at once which WOULD break that balance, but if you're okay with just boosting a classes overall effectiveness after they've been buffed up, they must be fine, right? You can post your logs if you want to, many of them are entertaining regardless of what others say. But to say that a race/class combo is balanced because of individual factors based on one or the other would basically mean you're not seeing the larger picture. You see that people want X, Y, and Z to be changed immediately and without any kind of knowledge to back it up. When I suggest changes, I suggest multiple changes that they could be tweaked one at a time in small increments so it doesn't destroy that balance we used to have. I don't want them all, I suggest them all because it allows different perspectives, and every time I do such things, you instantly post how it's unfair to that person specifically, but you NEVER offer your own suggestions in those threads as to why you think it shouldn't be and back it up with any kind of statistics. I've tried to get you and F0xx both to try and give alternate suggestions, but you both cop out and stop posting on the threads. You know PK, but you know it to a degree with specific combos, and I highly doubt you'd be able to make the odd race/class combo be as successful as any of your Qrace/Qclass characters. For instance with your signature you list past successful characters, they're mostly all power house combinations that have been statistically proven to be at least slightly above average for most players, and with the changes recently to some of them, even more so such as with a Necromancer.

You know why people bitch about Thief Gladiators? They have the ability to stack a lot of attacks with circle stab being allowed despite being targeted, they can lag like a mfer with that damned smash, and add in the fact that they can use items that grant them abilities like haste. By your standards though, that's all fine because you don't fight them in 90% of the cases, yet that one combination has completely shut down the entire Savant Cabal from even being remotely interesting. I like said character, but he's strong as hell and all of the synergies they have within it, it's almost better to play that specific combo than any other in Gladiator. You can do well with other combos out there, but that's a hill that's far too difficult to climb. I remember the PK log where people said that had you used petrify you probably would've won because you were able to nearly win even without it. It also got the class toned down because of that, and guess what? That's how games work  period. Someone plays a strong combo, begins to learn it really well, then completely dominates which results in those tone downs and it is the same for literally every modern game on PC and consoles. I don't see why this game should be any different.

I didn't have to fight any Ninja's when they were first boosted this last time around. I just read the logs and thought it seemed really odd how much of an uphill climb it seemed to be for a majority of people. But again by your standards it shouldn't have happened, but no reason why it shouldn't nor were there any suggestions for anything else ever made by you and it took one person to actually have something done with that specific path further than everything else had already been looked at and initially seemed to be "fine". Again, here we saw players take full advantage of the code when they recognized the different things within them in order to ultimately discover they were a bit much for almost everyone. I've fought some recently that weren't Gordy myself, and literally had no problem with them at all, but they weren't Undead either. Undead was boosted and people say they were worthless prior, but my personal experience with them then were  that they were fine and I was told certain combos I'd be wrecked by. I usually wrecked them. I left the game and came back years later to see many things have changed, and eventually they were tweaked as well for the better supposedly. Since people play them more now and with varying combinations, you get to see the wider array of each and what makes them too strong or not strong enough in key aspects. This resulted in further toning down on specific areas of the race in general, but it seems that was just another complaint of the month so I guess they were really fine before the next set of changes went in too by those same standards.

Bards are interesting. They were pretty entertaining before the last changes went in and after the first changes. Prior to that they were absolutely worthless outside of a RP perspective. Now with the right combo they can be extremely strong. I've heard of them being able to go through and solo areas far easier than even other tank like classes with their perks. If I hadn't seen them do it first hand and pull off some of the feats without much difficulty, I would've thought they were lying. People gripe about them because of some of their songs and what they do. Some I don't see as being a really bad thing, but I am at least willing to look at their suggestions, offer my own feedback, and see what other people come up with in those situations assuming they have actual thought to input on the matter. I for one am open to hear both sides of the story, but every time I see someone just start saying people are nit picking, I think of a few things.

1) Was the class/race recently changed within the last few years? If Yes, well, chances are they are strong because they're being coded and tested against classes that haven't been touched since prior to 2005. If not, were they being played by someone with a lot of knowledge of that combination. Thulgan would be a good example because he was strong and very dominant. An Ogre Warrior isn't necessarily the hardest to defeat or defend against, but guess what? Ogre got toned down in varying ways again because of it making it fit a little better in todays society.

2) Is the player someone who just nitpicks because they get their ass handed to them and if I've fought that same character, did I have similar results? If yes, I go back to that first step of whether it was changed recently or not. If no, I start thinking vuln weapons and varying strategies that may help me in the future and I'm more than willing to reach out to those players via PM to mull the ideas over to see if maybe it works for their combo if it's not working for mine. IE: Halfling now getting bonuses to using swords and daggers, if I'm playing something else entirely and they didn't think of it at the time.

3) Who plays the character? Often times if I can figure it out on who plays them, I can pretty much tell whether or not that may be the reason overall as to why I couldn't nail the killing blow. Lets face it. Some people are disgustingly fast in this game and can spot things before many others do. I think of it in terms of my play style and my brothers. When we used to play COD: Modern Warfare 2 on the 360 a lot, I would be the one who can play stealth and be happy with my average stats, but he was the type who could see someone on the other end of hte map out of the corner of his eye and would get a nuke in the first few minutes of playing. That mother fucker is literally blind legally in one eye and the other is shit. I still don't know how the hell he pulled it off since a majority of the time he'd react so quickly my eyes didn't even adjust to it.The thing with certain players playing a combo successfully though is that it shows the chinks in the armor of those combinations to the point of making the high strengths more obvious than they were before, and if they can pull it off, the rest of the player base could easily follow suit right behind them to do the same assuming they can deploy them as successfully as they did to begin with.

Toning down certain things is practically a requirement anymore in gaming. If you decide to ignore those things, your game goes to shit, and people will only play those combinations after that point because anything else would mean instant death in most cases. I could easily see this game going that way by not toning things down and allowing those power spikes to happen because the players who knew the ins and outs of the combination want to be able to come back in the future and beat the hell out of other players all over again. No one likes to see their favorite things tweaked to better the newbie friendliness of the game because it means you have to think about how to overcome those drawbacks later. And if you forget about them, then you're in trouble thinking it shouldn't happen despite the fact that it was changed and you just forgot you could no longer do something because of that change. What made your log so damned good at that point was the fact that it was a close battle. The downside was that it also showed all of those strengths the class had overall with very little drawbacks to it. I don't agree with the changes that were made after that point entirely because it ruined the game plan overall for the path entirely, but minor adjustments are needed in order to make the game competitive.

Changes to the game are basically like the trolly dilemma. You have 1 person who's doing really well with combinations, but you have 5 people who are consistantly losing to you. If nothing is done, you potentially have 5 people leaving or only wanting to play your combination because of the success you had. Many who choose that path wont be nearly as successful because they don't think of things as you do in those fights. There's a chance though that given enough time, those 5 people if they chose to stay and play that combination, they'd figure out everything you already did with testing of their own . Add in newer players who come in, get steam rolled because of it, then they go back to whatever MUD they were trying to get away from because at least it was more fair seeming overall. Or you risk losing that 1 player because they couldn't take advantage of the class as much as they used to be able to, but usually end up returning anyways. In 99% of all situations where someone is stomping the Pbase, it's going to eventually catch up with them somehow whether that's through toning things down for balance issues, or people finally got sick of their shit and just formed a group to take them out which is far more likely to end up with the player quitting than toning things down for balance reasons.

I see where you're coming from on both sides of this. What I really hate though is how a majority of the time you do not and you only see it from your perspective and no one else as if you're the only person here who plays. A lot of people who do complain about certain combinations though do so for legitimate reasons. It's not just to bitch about it (though many do, including myself even if it is just to myself), sometimes it's something that does need looking into. IE: Minister checking for saves vs Breath that only anyone with access to the code prior to that would have been able to tell. Saying that things shouldn't just be toned down is pretty ignorant and so is just trying to shut down peoples ideas. That is one of the most annoying things that players do to one another. "Well I have no problems with them, so I don't think it needs to happen at all. They're doing okay, just let them keep going without interference." With that logic, you stifle the voice of others and it's not just you personally who does it. I would love to see what you think COULD be potential decent changes and point out flaws in varying aspects of the ones that you yourself have mentioned and even others. Saying it's a bitch fest is literally just you bitching about bitch fest and being vocal about it. I may like to jab at Egreir from time to time about his editing skills or sometimes to F0xx as well, but Egreir's recent logs have more entertainment in them than watching someone playing classes that have proven to be powerful in the hands of those players seeing a Psi, Necro, Demon, etc just run through players. Egreir's logs give you a sense of actual urgency and worry about whether or not he's going to die or not. Like holy hells, He doesn't train shit at all, he just runs in and guns for it, and I'll be damned seeing him go up a % in a skill/spell, but still succeed is not only hilarious, but better than most other logs on that sub section. You need more pro's and con's of why or why not something should or should not be changed in threads. I've seen one thread that you were wanting changes of with Savant that overall seemed good, but even then you refused to see other sides of it and only chose to believe your changes would make the difference overall. What I think would be good is very different from what you think would be good. Mine is usually toning things down where as yours is always trying to beef something up. I think that alone has a lot to say about it.

[Kyzarius]

Balance by nerfing is bad.  It is detrimental to the players enjoyment.  I have had 5 classes I believe nerfed as i played them.  Some had been the way they were for YEARS, like psions and lich, then when i played them they got nerfed.  It gets old, and having your butt raked over the coals, or seeing other people get treated that way, for doing well every-time someone posts a log of you winning is frustrating.  You play, get nerfed, find another way to win, then that gets nerfed too.  Until you just cant make any progress or start losing because you lost something like lag protection or had a key skill/spell changed drastically, so you delete and go do something else.  The end result is going to be Forsaken Land of the giant Warriors.  Because that seems to be the only haven from nerfs. 

And I would like to point out, I am not playing the Undead race right now, nor intend to play one in the near future. 

I would suggest that advice in the PK forums be restricted to just that, advice on how to overcome.  Not an idea thread where people figure out how to change the game so they can win.  The assumption in this forum should be, that is the playing field, and in that field this is what you can do.  You wanna discuss nerfs then do so in the idea forum, or in prayer.  This shouldn't be the place.  It ALWAYS shapes up to an attack on the player.  Every-time. 

[f0xx]

Not sure if someone mentioned it already, haven't read all the comments (especially Tant's), but lotus scourge poison overrides other poisons.

Not just that but poisoning yourself makes it easier for a lotus scourge ninja to poison you, IIRC. 

[Anonymous]

Hmm I will say this. My other previous combo's I've played were much much stronger. He'd have destroyed Gordy. Also being able to defeat Danpher for instance whereas Gordy can't even get a spell off. I had previous LS ninjas and all of them failed or did only mediocre, again no one complained. Nearly no one played LS ninjas and even I had my concerns as they're doubly weak to the undead. Gordy nearly deleted 4 times from Berston, Danpher, Ahlana, and Vormalog. None of these guys complained when they were 4 rounding me and utilizing all these things in the game that make melee arguably op. Only when I got the best eq in the game, and particular rp rewards and the best players leaving was I able to not get consistently rofl stomped lol. I fear what'll happen to less skilled players whom want to play LS ninjas. And yes many of my characters become top tier and I decided to keep trying LS ninjas because it was a challenge and incredibly fun. The game has become boring to me where you have to keep playing the same 5 combos to compete. These days I've noticed people are very uncomfortable having to deal with various strategies outside of melee and lag. Its become a normalcy and I feel alot of our strong veteran players simply aren't around any longer for that reason. 

Keep this in mind, in this log this character knew I was online and just sat at the shopkeeper. He had no sanc, no flight, and half his moves. He still nearly got away where many classes would've destroyed him before he could leave that room. And again yes, I've done that multiple times to even the top tier combos that were unprepared. I've never seen a pk log where someone pretty much asks for death yet everyone calls the other guy op.

Nevertheless  just know that I can still see the overall dmg and curing at normal temples needing to adjusted and have faith in the staff that this will not become another class that's unplayable or requires too much to simply compete. Because as of this time nothing else in the game excites me enough to play fl until those balancing changes come in.

Anonymous poster hash: db6fc...dc4

[Mmm Coffee]

6 hours ago, f0xx said:

 haven't read all the comments (especially Tant's)

😂

[Tantangel]

Balance by Nerfing is literally the majority of the way people balance a game overall. You want to beef up which makes it look more nice and appealing to you, but it also means PK can be a lot shorter too for the same reason. Nerfing it down however gives newer players and older players alike with  less skill in PK to be able to go over a log and see where they could've done something different to help them in the future without having to post a log in the forum about how they got their asses stomped. Catching anyone unprepared is pretty much a sure death sentence. In this case, I already pointed out what could have been done differently and how he could've survived. It wasn't hard to see. What was mentioned though about losing 600hp due to lotus scourge poison, that's what got my attention and not the particular log itself. If 600hp is wrong, that's one thing. If it's right though and it's fairly consistent, then yeah, it probably should be looked at.

This is how I view the statement, " Balance by nerfing is bad.  It is detrimental to the players enjoyment.":

1) I can't have fun unless I'm dominating, or at least know that I can dominate.

2) If a class is nerfed while I'm playing said class, because I'm just really good at PK and no one can match my skills.

3) My fun is directly related to only PK and not RP because it's what comes more naturally to me than anything else.

I like to mess around with different combinations sometimes to see what strengths and perks they have potentially. Some of the things that were changed directly in part due to you have also been toned back slightly later on in the other direction. Sometimes a toned down situation it was nerfed a bit too much, so it reverses the initial nerf slightly making it more in balance again. You're also still failing to realize that the issues that have been pointed out and nerfs to classes has been done to a majority of classes that did not exist in the initial debut of FL either. If you ever had a chance at looking at the old school code, it was entertaining to read some of the comments written in by Viri from time to time like the one for Illithid Psi stating something about "Alright, we cheat a little here and have Illithid only available to Dream Psi." After that point though any class releases were made after he'd already left, and a lot of the code allowing the things being toned down have been done so because you get more information over time than instant feedback which resulted in such changes. They probably would've gone unnoticed for some time if you yourself didn't take full advantage over it. Even Despiser would play combinations to expose strengths that got toned down and he was ripped left and right for it. I liked him for that reason, because it meant the game would become balanced overall.

Writing an idea anymore for me is 85% of people shutting it down without offering alternatives, 14% of people not bothering to read it, and 1% actually coming back with other ideas that I didn't think of that could also work. I see talking about it in a thread that may directly affect it to be more productive though because for me, more people will read it and comment on it than if it's posted in the idea thread. I'll refrain though from mentioning anything again though. I see your side of it, and I see my side of it, but there hasn't ever really been a middle ground to agree upon even when I've mentioned overstepping the halfway mark of my ideas to your suggestions which eliminates any possibilities of any kind of compromise.

@f0xxso you don't have to read it really it was pointing out how you had stated that despite pointing out the power of a class and being told they were fine, it took you playing one for them to actually realize that, yes, it was actually a bit too strong which resulted in such a nerf.