Cut down rare count by half

The system is not broken. Its fixed.

It gets fixed every two or three months.

Staff listens to the ideas and suggestions.

Staff changes things for players.

Players get what they want, realize they did not want it, and it starts over.

All of you who do not worship the cycle are blind hypocrites.

Praise Anume.

For the record. Nostalgia for the old days, is just like nostalgia in RL.

We only remember the good things, we let those pleasant memories supersede the realities of what it was like.

Pros: < Cons:

Pk at all levels over ten. < Awesome! But these days people adventure and master all defenses before going pro.

+30/+30 was competitive at 50. < Awesome! But these days people can get AC -700? Good Luck hitting that.

We had 30 or more players on regularly. < Awesome! These days a good night we see >10 <20.

People forget, there were no paths, there were no malforms, there were no holds barred.

Lack of communication in game, lack of compassion among players, left the entire PK side of the game "Trashy" with exception to Warmasters. Made it hard to play a warmaster btw. In fact, if you were in a cabal, you were a target, period.

Addendum to the above:  

You were a target. Period. If you were in a cabal, you had allies... Sometimes.

I for one think gangbanging is ok.

I agree with one adjustment.

 

We limit the amount of rares allowed. Otherwise you have one baddy dressed to the point they need to be ganged to be killed.

So, we are back to square one. It's OK, as long as some of my chars can get their hands on the EQ, and we do that by limiting how many rares the strong characters can wear. And how is that any different from the current situation?

can anyone provide the info on or a link to how equipment is 'finalized'? (meaning, do we know what constitutes a piece of gear being considered rare/unique? light/heavy? good only/evil only?)

IMO, ALL the Rare and Unique gear in FL should be highly useful and greatly sought after. (even though -realistically- something being rare/unique doesn't necessarily mean it's useful - for the sake of our game it should) 

ALSO items given as gifts from the Gods should be the most sought after and most useful items in the game. to me that makes sense from an rp standpoint and from a gaming perspective. they usually tend to be aesthetically pleasing, but often lack in functionality/usefulness - at least when compared with alternatives. thus, we should remedy it! the change would also provide incentive to stimulate interaction both in rp and pk. mortals would be even more inclined to vie for the affections/gifts of the/their Gods/God.

This topic has just become a flaming ball of crap.

can anyone provide the info on or a link to how equipment is 'finalized'? (meaning, do we know what constitutes a piece of gear being considered rare/unique? light/heavy? good only/evil only?)

IMO, ALL the Rare and Unique gear in FL should be highly useful and greatly sought after. (even though -realistically- something being rare/unique doesn't necessarily mean it's useful - for the sake of our game it should)

Completely agreed. I think the idea of rare/unique needs to be rethought completely. Too many items just have a rare flag because "that's the way it's always been"

The more rares you wear, the more hours you need to play each month to keep them.

Problem solved.

Why does all the "solutions" have to rotate around forcing someone into doing something?

Force them to lose all their rares on death (all nice items being rotdeath)

Force them into staying online more (Dale's above suggestion)

Force them into wearing less rares (Aulian's suggestion)

Didn't we as a playerbase understand already that the "stick" method doesn't work? RP only flourished when the IMMs started to promote it adequately.

Cutting rares available is also a stick method.

I fail to see how my solution doesnt solve everyones gripe. My solution would help keep rares in the game and not on logged out characters. Which is the issue.

I don't actually think there is much of an issue currently.

I see the possibility of equipment meaning less in the game than it currently does (it means a whole lot) and I think that adds an element of fun and excitement to the game that we don't currently have. People will stick it out and fight more and be somewhat competitive quickly after a full loot. Players that aren't great PKers will then learn more, because skill will actually mean more and they'll be able to fight more often and more frequently.

I don't hear complaints as much as I hear a desire to "shake things up."

I said it on another thread, I can't remember which one, but I'll say it again here.

It's entirely too easy to get your numbers too high. What I mean by this is;

On a melee character, I can have soft-capped hit/dam, -400+ ac, and -30 saves across the board.

On a caster/communer, I can have my -ac, hp, and saves so high that most of the "medium" equipped people won't be able to touch me.

Players have learned that these highs are possible and actually extremely EASY to get. This wasn't the case "back in the day" because people didn't have the information and knowledge we have now. Most of us know how to get through Winter, Gear, Discord, and Desolation. We know the "tricks" to beating some of the strongest mobs in the game.

We know its possible so that's what we strive for. Its not the equipment that is the issue. Its the player mentality that its required. 

Top tier PKers will always have the best equipment and when they don't they will be able to take it away from those that do because they are the top tier PKers.

When no one has that equipment and its on the mob, who do you think will go get it? Its not the casual player that logs in to mess around. Its the player that knows how to get it and does. That player is USUALLY the top tiered PKer. 

Do you know why the fights back then were considered to be "more fun"? In my opinion its because of those numbers. Look at those two "ancient" logs that were posted in the PK logs. People have already laughed at their scorecard numbers. 

I wonder how effective it would be to lower the stats on a bunch of equipment or capping off stats at certain numbers. Players wouldn't be dying in just a few rounds. Everyone says how much fun it was back in the day to fight 2-3 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 while tagging back and forth. This was possible because those numbers weren't so high. You could survive those fights and it'd be fun for HOURS, not minutes.

Tell it on the mountain!!

So then the fix is simple. Really.

Keep the rares the way they are.

Lets improve HP/MANA/MOVES across the board to adequately maintain balance with the Damage outputs of skills and weapons currently in existence that were not around when avg HP/MAN/MOVES per level were set. I am not talking about doubling the numbers here. But back in the day an emerald sword avg 20? I think, was a viable weapon. Now people are looking for avg dam 25+ which is a 25% increase. If Player HP were increased by 25% to compensate this would the fights not last longer? Does a longer fight not aid the moderate to low tier pkers in that they have more chances to flee or change strategies? Just a thought. Thanks Trick, I would not have realized this discrepancy without reading that post.

Just for the sake of clarity, I skipped over posting several logs that featured one or two round KOs. Those things still happened at that time.

Used to love some emerald sword...

I almost two rounded Shandemarin once, with my level 48 gnome invoker, while he was fighting some Healer.

Then I found myself sitting at a 300k XP hole.

We have done this twice already, once under Iru, once under Malch.

I told Malch then it was a bad idea as we had already done it once. It was done again, with the same result.

The decked chars were still decked and nobody else could find any eq. A lot of wailing an unhappiness was the result. I am astonished nobody remembers this...