Aging bonuses

[Fiere]

I logged on an old character recently, a melee type, and discovered my strength was 19 instead of 20. So I thinks, "What the holy scrud!" And then I remembered about aging, but I coulda sworn that with age wisdom or int went up as well, which it did not for my character. That brings us to the first question: What's the deal with that? Now, this got me intrigued and I went forum burrowing...it seems the B man said he was gonna implement aging bonuses for melee types. This ever happen? And if so, what are they?

[random_clown]

Random thought with no real foundation: If aging is going to be detrimintal to stats(and it is, overall, no matter what class your are playing really) then throw in some kind of bonus. Perhaps when you age, your new max skill is 101% from greater understanding and wisdom of age.

[Aulian]

That may be a little crazy. Everyoen will be making aged mages on purpose...Do we really need the savants to get any stronger

[Deykari]

You could always look at it the other way. The aging process helps with refreshing the character base. Nobody lives forever in Aabahran (we do have lives on our characters), so when you start aging, you are becoming gradually weaker until you just eventually condie. A shame it affects melees more than casters.

How about somehow reducing maximum mana capacity when aging? When you're old, you're obviously going to be not as strong, obviously going to be not as agile, obviously going to be not as a healthy. You're 'life experience' has let to you having a lot of knowledge and wisdom, but your actual mental capacity is beginning to diminish. Or something.

To be quite fair, you can probably tell I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Dey

[TheNewGuy]

the str decrease comes earlier than the wis increase i think. if i've remember correctly, it was behrens, or at least an imm, who said that. but i have no quote on it.

[Deykari]

I think that each individual race has it's stat changes at different times too.

Dey

[Fiere]

So maybe I'll just keep him around for another couple months and wait for that wis increase to kick in.

[random_clown]

My idea was certainly just a random shot in the dark. I won't go into the specifics code wise, but to say the least, a hit to str, dex, and con is an overall detriment to your character regardless of an increase in int and wis. This is also regardless of class. It may hurt melee types more by hitting their offense/defense, but it still hits a casters defense.

I have always found it a point of curiousity why they go in just a little here. Aging is a subset of realism put into the game. However, it is done in an arbitrary fashion. If we are truely going to keep track of age, then keep track of it in a sensible fashion(which I find impossible).

Are we to say that once we hit X age, we get a little weaker and slower, but thats where it ends? If we are keeping track of age, there should be some people that can barely lift a tea cup. In as much as that may seem ridiculous, it is no more than the idea of all these fighters running around in combat with over 300lbs of equipment/items on them.

Aging as a means of realism is not an avenue that should be half pursued. Perhaps not pursued at all, because aging due to realism conflicts with a fantasy world.

Which brings me to my next point: FL isn't the real world. Because of the fantasy setting, applying real world aging schemes does not work well. You say a human gets more intelligent and wise with age, but an elf does not? Perhaps a person is actually stronger at 40 than they were at 15 (easily possible). It is entirely possible that a man is simply an idiot and is no more intelligent or wise from his years than he was at 15.

The variety of affects that age can have, expounded by the fact that this world is fantasy and brings even more possibility, shows clearly that arbitrary stat alterations on age make very little sense for gameplay.

The only way the current aging process makes sense is if, as I have read before I believe, it is a way to promote character turnover. If this is truely the reason, I find it a poor one and the concept should be looked at in more depth. I will discuss more on why it's poor in function later if required.

[WarriorCleric]

Aging was put in to promote character turnover. However the classes that tend to last the longest actually gain something over time, the mage/cleric classes. This is something Behrens has mentioned he will be looking at.

Sources:

Virigoth implemented it as a way to add 'realism' to the game, and more importantly, to promote character turnover, to an extent; apparently, at the time, based on what I know, he felt that we had some people staying at 50 for too long, and while character longevity is a good thing, freshness is good as well.

I disagree with it, mainly because it's promoting character turnover in the wrong place. Melee race/classes combinations always were harder to play, and had much greater turnover, than, say, the omnipresent drow clerics/etc., who rarely die and last for a much longer time.

But yes, this current IMMstaff HAS discussed it amongst ourselves, and Behrens has said he will look at it in some point in time. Just that we haven't quite got to it yet.

There is a help for aging melee types that I am implementing. You will all like it.

WC

[Cycel]

Something I'm not too clear on: Can aging increase int/wis past its normal maximum?

[Acerbity]

Yes.

[Questioner]

I believe he already changed the dk/pallies? Not sure cause I just rolled a new character yesterday. Not sure if there were changes.

[Fiere]

No, I'm pretty sure he would have announced it, and I'm a forum addict.

[Ophiel X]

this was something i was wondering about too. i remember when viri added in aging, and for some reason i assumed it was taken out.

i don't like it one bit and completely agree with raargant

[F-3000]

With one race/class combo changes are str and dex drop by one, while int and wis increase by one.

Also note, that while str drop do take one point off from the actual amount, wis increase doesn't add that point to it: You need to either spend training or pick specific eq to get the accuired wis-point into use.

[Sirax]

And as far as i know when you lose your str/dex getting equipment that normally improves strength and agility does nothing to boost the decrease in stats which is very annoying. Im also one for being against getting old while it is realistic it is mostly frustrating, if you spend a long time on a character its hard enough to see your con dropping without seeing other stats drop to make things harder.

[corpsestomp]

Since my characters rarely stay around long enough to age, I can't complain about it, but I think it's a good idea in the fact that it creates character turnover.

Same reason rezz doesn't give lives back anymore, people just hang around for too long.