Balance issues - PVP

[Zehren]

My suggestion is nerf the charge ability more so by causing a cooldown of significance.

Like, having it tire out the horse. DAMN.

Edit: inb4 horsegoats

[Delmon]

yes, like once the horse uses charge it needs a breather before running off

[luminier]

I think if you ever used charge you'd realize how bad it actually is haha.

[fernao]

I think if you ever used charge you'd realize how bad it actually is haha.

Which is surely the reason it is one of your prefered modes of attack, right?

[luminier]

I use mounts, but I almost never charge.

[ganandorf]

I could actually vouch for that ^. Try counting the times you have been hit by charge, i bet you could count them on one hand. I know in the one year that I was playing Ganon, I could.

[rex]

I'm a little confused why anyone would think cleric spells should be cast instantly. Some of your are complaining combat skills should have a delay? Why? The chance of me hitting a turtling player in PVP with a gore/special is like 5-10%. The chance of a caster hitting me with an overpower bone spear/other miracle is 100%. On top of that, a caster should not be able to move rooms while casting! Casting takes extreme mental focus and preparation. This makes no sense to me!

Here are the changes I see that need to be made:

-Make Trap more unique to each guild having multiple effects including trapping the person, but make it take longer to cast (removed from Sathonites as they already have Pain and Bone Spear to keep there enemy close, but changed to similar types ad effects and success rate (success rate to trap the enemy) for asrals and taniel clerics)

-Mounts have a cool down before charging again (1-5 OOC minutes), with this cool down the damage of the charge should be much greater (like the way it used to be)

[fernao]

I'm a little confused why anyone would think cleric spells should be cast instantly. Some of your are complaining combat skills should have a delay? Why? The chance of me hitting a turtling player in PVP with a gore/special is like 5-10%. The chance of a caster hitting me with an overpower bone spear/other miracle is 100%. On top of that, a caster should not be able to move rooms while casting! Casting takes extreme mental focus and preparation. This makes no sense to me!

Here are the changes I see that need to be made:

Fine fine, lets look at them....

-Make Trap more unique to each guild having multiple effects including trapping the person, but make it take longer to cast (removed from Sathonites as they already have Pain and Bone Spear to keep there enemy close, but changed to similar types ad effects and success rate (success rate to trap the enemy) for asrals and taniel clerics)

Great, but give bone spear/pain the same chance to limit movement as trap does for other guilds then.

-Mounts have a cool down before charging again (1-5 OOC minutes), with this cool down the damage of the charge should be much greater (like the way it used to be)

Fine, make unicorns blockable as other mounts and similar fighting stats. then we get even grounds....

[Nathan]

Hmm, I still have not tried trap, but I am most astonished how many people already seem to have experienced it. Honestly people, who of you did already run into a trapped room, and who of you is only refering to hearsay?

[Zehren]

I seriously can't see why unicorns should not realistically be blockable. I have blocked a giant's club with a tiny knife before.

[fernao]

With blocking unicorns I mean blocking exits so unicorns cannot pass. Their attacks can be of course blocked or at least evaded.

[louis]

With blocking unicorns I mean blocking exits so unicorns cannot pass. Their attacks can be of course blocked or at least evaded.

Is that a general mount bug? Or are unicorns just extremely agile?

[Delia]

All mounts run through blocked exits, I believe.

[Zehren]

All mounts run through blocked exits, I believe.

I think I might have seen a pony or plowhorse blocked... Not sure. I am not sure how you plan to block a giant horse from plowing through you, though, unless you point a pointy thingie against it, waiting on it to impale itself.

[rex]

Ironhold Giants are able to block unicorns. Unicorns are blockable. They did not used to be but now they are as this bug was fixed a couple years ago.

It is not realistic for something tiny like a human to block a mount however. If they want better success rate then I propose a failure to block results in the person blocking getting trampled and there head smashed in by the mounts hooves

[Zehren]

Ironhold Giants are able to block unicorns. I believe I said this earlier in the thread also.

I am laughing so much, picturing giants stepping about wildly, trying to block the movements of a tiny white creature aiming to get past.

[anglachel]

The height and weight have a influence if you can bock (or can be blocked).
It would we a bit strange then a halfling can block a grown up dragon. But may be the check is a bit to restrict.

[adanath]

Wow, this exploded quickly.

A few things:

1.) I think Phelan and I are the only ones with experience with the trap miracle. It did have a major bug, that really only applies to mostly my playing style currently (I am a very good thrower), I went in against a giant ghoul and Phelan, only because I am a great thrower and very strong (I am trying not to give anything about game mechanics away), it did not allow me to pick up my weapons after throwing...this obviously is kind of a severe bug, but you know we have great wizards and they have worked on it. However, most else about trap is conjecture. I never complained, myself about the miracle, just informed about the bug. A Satho has never had a problem keeping me in a room with bone spear so it really doesn't change anything much for me. Even against a turtled cleric, a hit and run tactic doesn't work for Adan so he isn't moving anyways, although hoping to escape possibly if about to die no differently than any other character. I would wager it is HARDER for me to escape a cleric than anyone else almost except another tshahark. Bone spears seem to have an amazing ability to keep me from moving along with pain. I am not complaining! This miracle was given to all guilds, lets give constructive feedback when we see it used and see if it can be incorporated in a balanced way.

2.) Still most of the problems stem from the good side not being:
a) Active enough
b) not playing together enough
c) Not using things to their availability

Right now you have an unforunate shift because it is always intended there is less overtly evil characters than good characters, so the combination of tactics they can use and their strongholds "tend" to be better for a reason. It shold be everyone (almost) against Sathos. Not 2 people over here, one person over here, one person over here. THese people are damn ghouls, and sacrifice people, and create undeads. (which brings a whole other aspect of too much post-modern relativism going into characters in the mud). There isn't really any argument here, they are damn evil as crap. more evil than any mass murderer we know of in this world almost. THEY RAISE UNDEAD ARMIES, fight together against them.

3.) The tower of pain is a problem, as much fun as it can be..it is absolutely ridiculously hard to close especially with revenants and giants inside the tower, and not nearly as hard to open. Like it is ever a great thing to close it? You close it, it is really open 12 hours later, you can't blame the Sathos for re-opening it, three of them are on or four, sure why not. I am not sure what can be done about this perhaps a more permanent divine light source inside the tower with a couple archers in balconies..I don't know? I think it is a great thing to play around if it is more rare, and right now closing is more rare because it is much harder and there are fewer people able to help (Crusader Cleric Shao, a Rogue if they have enough elven arrows to make a difference, otherwise noone else is really hurting undeads with the exception of maybe one or two powerful mages)

4.) The ease by which cities can be raided is an issue. Cities should be Very very hard to raid. It would make it a more rare occurence and a bigger deal, and encourage people to assist against the raiders. Recently a team of four Sathos raided Elvandar, I was mostly afk and had to be due to RL issues that kept bouncing at me, but most people did not help defend. Why? In their minds it was pointless, they would just die, four Sathos together is just too much. Solution? I don't know make some constructive suggestions to the wizards . Perhaps a couple crossbowmen on the walls as well. I know Asador is now VERY VERY VERY hard to raid, and I was taking I believe 4 bolts per round (it might've been 3) I am not trying to exaggerate or make anything look awful here. I personally think given how hard Elvandar and Arborea are it should be easier there, although not as easy as it was, or the other cities should be much harder as well. (Like less bolts stronger guards) The guards at the satho gates are not that strong, the crossbow bolts are when they come four or three or whatever it was at a time.

5.) This is oft repeated throughout the history of this game and every mud I have ever played. The reality is you end up with more active, higher skilled players on one side, and the other side is *underpoewred* then the pendulum swings the other way and it keeps going. Both sides (many people do well at it) need to have sensitivity to not "Win" too extremely that it completely decimates people's desire to play, many do well with this. I personally believe the good side needs to work more and better together.

6.) Right now a lot of it is also because of a disparity in time zones. Sathos tend to be active along certain hours that Crusaders aren't and vice-versa.

7.) As soon as I kill a few Sathos someone will complain I am overpowered I am sure, and I will probably die as many times in the meantime. It is hard to see the big picture.

8.) I don't know why I numbered these and I know my numbers are overpowered as well.

I'm just saying if we can bring things to the table constructively these wizards are nice enough to try and help us with them. It is not usually so good in most muds.

[anglachel]

Yes, some write quicker as i can read.

The trap bug that you can not pick up things should be removed now.

I think too, that raiding a city should very hard. This is a job for the domianlord and wizards to make it hard, but not impossible.
In my oppion it should not only more and stronger guards, the player should be a part of defense too. My be for every player who is involved an extra guard appears.

[delem]

poRex and I also tested the trap miracle, a day or two ago, not sure about you guys. But I do agree on the fact that:

- Cities should be harder to raise, possibly either raise the stats/skills or guards, or just additional guards at other cities (anglachel had a typo, so not sure exactly what was trying to be said, but I tihnk I can figure it out ) Also, players do avoid helping defending the city, because of what has already been pointed out, it being -pointless-. So maybe an additional feature could be that citizens of whatever city could even team up with the guards (just how Crusaders and clerics can), so that if there is only one citizen around, they could attempt to help and even hide behind the guards if needed, rather than guards + 1 lone citizen vs. enemies.

- Back to the trap miracle, I'm assuming based on the clerics skill/experience will affect how powerful it is. We were testing it out with a very weak cleric and it was shitty in my opinion. Taniel Clerics are full of small and medium clerics, so I'm just assuming that their trap miracle is puny in comparison to Sathos (this is just an assumption). So in one way, yes this miracle does bring some new games to the table, but it also gives the upper hand to the Sathonites in this endless war (again assuming miracle effect is based on the clerics skill).

- No on the point about being able to cast while moving, that's just ridiculous to me. And no on the delay/preparation of using specials.

- I agree on the fact that it sucks how the clerics now have their own version of thief spikes. Guild or not, their uniqueness has been taken away.

- I agree that it sucks that the hit and run tactic will be tougher to do now. Back in the day, I honestly don't remember this hit and run and turtling tactics to the extent we use today! Like yes, when poGanon was the ONLY Satho, him turtling was obviously appropriate at the time vs. Luminier, Delem, and other Crusaders and Taniels (can't remember who at the time). But Sathonites are turtling when they vastly outman the good side = not fun. Though, good sides are at fault and abused their numbers back in the day and raided everything and controlled everything, but I believe that's because of new players joining and just being power hungry, so I appreciate poPhelan keeping Sathos in check and not doing it to that extent So with Adanath back for now, just him counts as 10 men, so I don't see any problem with them "turtling" now (I love how "turtling caught on aha). poLuminier does the run and hit tactic because, as he said before, just -has- to. It's generally just him these days, otherwise he would just die or become captured so easily.

- Mounts -should- get tired eventually. It takes SO much to even try to get them the slightest bit weary, but whatever. Unicorns and warhorses are meant for battle, they are -trained- to fight with their rider, tired or not, if the rider wants to charge, they will charge. If they're tired, maybe their charge will be weaker if there is impact. Though it is tough to charge at players still. I've charged MANY MANY times, and I'd assume that I'd hit ~10% (complete guess) of the target. So in my opinion, mounts and charging shouldn't really have to change.

- And to be honest, I'm not sure how PvP can always be balanced. We can attempt to balance it now, but when players become more skilled and better, it shifts again. Though we can always bring back Adanath for balancing. AMIRITE?