The Thurse Thread

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Aslak
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Re: The Thurse Thread

#21 Post by Aslak » Tue Mar 31, 2015 5:02 am

Delia wrote:
Since logs are too heavy to be moved these days even less versatile than they used to be.
You mean the logs cannot be moved at all anymore? What a bummer if that is so. What will the Arborean woodcutters with their tshaharks for beasts of burden in my imagination do now?
Logs must still be movable, else towers in the entrance of Elvandar would be impossible, and there often are 2-3 placed.

The main problem with towers/undeads/golems is that you excert control and danger without putting yourself in any danger.
On top of that, the time and risk involved in removing them is FAR greater then creating them. It takes my char over 30 minutes to remove a single tower (unmanned). I spend my whole day to remove 6 of them, only to notice once my round through Arborea finished, that more had been replaced then I could possibly remove in that time.
If these things need to exist, every guild should have them. Then we can fight totally boring proxywars with towers against phonix against undead against angel agaist demon.
At least put a stern timer on such tools so they degrade fast if the owner does not care for them, like with the golems was said, 4 hours sounds like a decent time. It allows your char to ignore them so it is not forced to waste your whole evening removing towers that are replaced by the creator in 30 mins of his time.

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#22 Post by ferranifer » Tue Mar 31, 2015 5:06 am

glorfindel wrote:The reason why I brought the twohanders to the discussion, I don't think, personally the problem is the trap - unpleasant / dangerous setup. They do make the game more interesting. What sucks are the one-hit kills from afar. And that's the part that should, in my opinion, change.
Absolutely.

To be honest, I would rather see people self-restraining than a complete removal of features, because being able to project force and take over territory can be a very powerful arc-driving tool. But I have to question the necessity of certain features, specifically the one-shot mechanics.

I don't really know how much Crusaders and Sathos trully need the killing power on top of the other benefits that their setups provide. As mentioned before here, watchtowers provide crazy good intel and sathos need the meat shields to stand a chance against the inevitable mega-groups of enemies. They are already projecting presence and shaping the political landscape before they also make random people's lives miserable.

About this particular case, let's not forget that those were thurses, not undead. No changes to the mechanics of watchtowers or undead would have helped here. Nothing else but self-restrain and care for the other people playing the game.

Also, to the devs... why do these monsters even exist? I'm talking about monsters that can and will one-shot players on a single die roll.

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#23 Post by Delia » Tue Mar 31, 2015 5:32 am

As a detail the monster being a thurse or undead is insignificant. A general classification of giant with giant sword works better. Though there are more dangerous giants than thurses and they do not have weapons. Also you can rely to encounter undead giants practically anywhere.

Personally I like the thurse with them being an isolated threat and I always imagine they wander a bit southwards during very cold winters. They offer a mythic threat bit like Rimtursar or some such but would I fight them? Not if I could help it.

What intrigues me is that were they placed by Sathos or by a wiz.

Anyways, I guess I tend to be paranoidically cautious but really, forgetting to do that single 'look' can cost your life at anypoint, anywhere. Even if the thurses and two handers and one hit kills were all removed from the code that would not change.
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Re: The Thurse Thread

#24 Post by Delia » Tue Mar 31, 2015 5:51 am

As for towers...perhaps a construction site could spawn first which would take some time to complete. NPC works would arrive and if they were left unprotected you could just kill the workers without touching the site. Of course you could burn everything to the ground.

Also the further the site is from crusader areas of influence, the longer it would take for the workers and the eventual tower guard to arrive. Harsh conditions could prolong the process, you might have to actually pay gold for the tower, for the workers and the guard(high risk job after all). If towers have a tendency to topple down regularly, crusaders might find finding capable workers/guards much harder/costly.

EDIT moved to ideas
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Re: The Thurse Thread

#25 Post by luminier » Tue Mar 31, 2015 6:10 am

Id be fine if watchtowers disappeared today. No sweat off my back.

I mean if a majority of the population hates them... why do we have stuff in the game that almost everyone hates? Towers really only benefits crusaders and allies. Which happens to be like about half the playerbase I guess.

And as for logs, I can move logs if I get my plow horse and a large cart and load up the cart, move the logs and then return the cart. So I am limited to outside areas a horse can reach, instead of -any- outside area. Big difference.

I would also be fine if instant death crits disappeared today. No sweat off my back.

It would help nerf tshaharks quite a bit, and It would significantly cut down on my number of deaths and number of PVP kills. Tshaharks would still be a force because a strong hit from a big weapon would still hurt a lot. I actually think light elf fighters would be hit the most from that. Elbows or slams to break necks are more frequent when you're insanely fast. And being able to break a neck right away in a fight is nice because you don't have to deflect as much.

Most of my PVE kills aren't one shot kills anyways. I actively try to -not- one shot kill so I can "grind" my skills more.

The change to instant death crits would change the game a lot. I wonder how everyone would feel about that?
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Re: The Thurse Thread

#26 Post by Aslak » Tue Mar 31, 2015 6:59 am

luminier wrote: The change to instant death crits would change the game a lot. I wonder how everyone would feel about that?
I do not think the possibility of death crits is the trouble, but how easy they are to place for certain groups/chars, specially if you use NPCs to deliver them with only limited/none threat for yourself.

I came from another mud with had quite a simple rule for it: Never use NPCs to kill a Player when you are not present yourself (in the same room).

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#27 Post by louis » Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:01 am

Heee, I like our little watchtowers :)

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#28 Post by luminier » Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:07 am

Aslak wrote:
luminier wrote: The change to instant death crits would change the game a lot. I wonder how everyone would feel about that?
I do not think the possibility of death crits is the trouble, but how easy they are to place for certain groups/chars, specially if you use NPCs to deliver them with only limited/none threat for yourself.

I came from another mud with had quite a simple rule for it: Never use NPCs to kill a Player when you are not present yourself (in the same room).
Did that game have similar dynamics to Geas?
louis wrote:Heee, I like our little watchtowers :)
I like them, and they've never bothered me on other characters, even when I directly opposed the Crusaders. But I am just one voice.
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Re: The Thurse Thread

#29 Post by Aslak » Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:14 am

luminier wrote:
Did that game have similar dynamics to Geas?
Yes, it was actually rather similar and used the same LP Mud codebase. Combat was less sophisticated, but the setup of the game was quite similar with 3 fractions fighting for power and the good side having number advantage (though that stopped to work when player numbers slowly dropped).

Certain guilds had the ability to control NPCs, necromancers had undead hordes, mages had elementals and similar things and bards could charm different kind of animals while thieves could move normal NPCs around without being themself detected.
Control of these monsters was (in many cases) stronger then here and you could move some of them around without being there yourself, but you could use the same old trick to group up monster hordes and place them all in one room.

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#30 Post by Delia » Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:17 am

Just to offer another view...insta-kill hits from two handers are not necessarily the worst threat to us cloth/light armours folk. Sometimes dual wielded smaller and faster weapons can be even more effective especially if the NPC can do a special or you are against a player who can go delaylimit 0 and frenzy. Meaning, the effect is the same. (Almost)instant death.

Against most characters those crazy giant swords are just overkill.

Delia would much rather fight against a thurse with a big blade than the unarmed giant, for example.

So just basically agreeing here with that (even a good)possibility of a lethal critical is not the problem.
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Re: The Thurse Thread

#31 Post by luminier » Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:47 am

I agree with Delia. The thing that kills luminier the fastest in the game right now is wraiths. The ability they have to completely ignore armour can kill me very quickly. Two wraiths is double trouble and kill me even faster. No big twohander needed. I would rather face a skeleton with a big twohander than a wraith that can just bleed me out extremely quickly. At least i can -block- a two hander.

Halforcs are probably the next greatest threat. Ogres are a joke for Luminier but halforcs take forever for me to kill, and have the ability to do significant damage to me. Especially with their ability to group up very easily. the battle axe halforcs can be annoying, but generally even the lance and swords variety are annoying. Just the other day Skragna died to halforcs. Not even Full platemail helped him there!
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Re: The Thurse Thread

#32 Post by Aslak » Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:35 am

And it is good that there are monsters that remain a threat to even big chars. But I never have died instant to a group of halforcs, if I died, it was either me being not attentive or unable to flee due to blocking.
With big twohanders on giants, you die the moment you entered the room. And that is simply no fun. If you visit those giants on your own, you know the risk and accept it, fine, but if those monsters suddenly stalk you on the streets (undead or alive), it is no fun. Easiest way to solve would be make them unable (undeads) to wield twohanded weapons and give them a routine (alive monsters) to return to their homes after their abductor left. It would even make sense, why would those giants remain for the next few months sitting on a bridge and defend it as if it would be their home.

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#33 Post by Aslak » Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:38 am

Most of the solutions posted here still do not solve the problem of the amount of work it takes to create "remote power" and the amount of work and risk it takes to remove it again.

It is one of the main troubles I hate in the current system as it puts those at an additional disadvantage from game time that already have to suffer the disadvantage from "remote power" being forced on them.

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#34 Post by Sairina » Tue Mar 31, 2015 1:18 pm

I actually like the idea of the Thurse returning home after a while, it both makes sense for them to do and it would make them more comparable to a golem lasting only for 4 hours...

I disagree that scouting helps much in a case like this, where the creature is placed on a bridge - sure I can scout ahead and decide not to go to Amward for the next week - woohoo. At the very least someone cut off a large part of the player base from access to a large area, all while not even being online themselves. If however the Thurse eventually left on its own, or a watchtower needed to be maintained, this would be less of a problem as you could just wait it out.

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#35 Post by mazarmormuk » Tue Mar 31, 2015 4:01 pm

If these things need to exist, every guild should have them. Then we can fight totally boring proxywars with towers against phonix against undead against angel agaist demon.
I completely disagree, aslak.
From my point of view, exactly those remote stuff (which i include towers, undeads, opened portals, blessed grounds, all traces a char can leave) produce most of the PvP situations and enemy interactions (how often did you have a PvP since the towers were placed?)
It is one of the main troubles I hate in the current system as it puts those at an additional disadvantage from game time that already have to suffer the disadvantage from "remote power" being forced on them.
Thats also from your current position and can easily be changed..imagine a taniel cleric removing undeads: he ll be rewarded by the code i guess.

Just imagine the remote power would be protective to the one producing it, but its removal rewarded (with EP for example, or soulstones, or what do i know). Its not the tower or undead in general that creates a system you dislike, it is how it is used and if you get enough reward for your effort to be motivated to do it (which is definately not the case on watchtowers)

And i agree that this stuff should vanish (undeads do) after a while if the producer doesnt care

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#36 Post by Skragna » Tue Mar 31, 2015 4:30 pm

@Aslak: Halforcs tend to group up into huge unmanageable groups in a heartbeat if you're unlucky or just not incredibly quick on the "run away right now" thing. To wit...

Halforc, Halforc.

Halforc screams: HELP!

You hear a halforc from the west: I come!
You hear a halforc from the west: I come!
You hear a halforc from the west: I come!
You hear a halforc from the west: I come!

Two halforcs are a pretty dangerous fight. SIX of them will kill virtually every player in the MUD, and once you're outnumbered like that, in a tiny room, you have next to NO chance of escaping. To make it worse, halforcs chase you, to boot, making that tiny chance of escape even tinier.

Now, to chime in on the original purpose of the thread: I don't think that giants should automatically attack someone after they've been interacted with, for some time. They should yell or holler at them from afar to warn players of what lies ahead. Sathonite undead shouldn't be allowed weapons period, because they're deadly enough as-is, but keep them or lose them, Sathonites will continue to use them much as they have lately. I'd be perfectly happy, myself, with losing our watchtower archers if they still scouted, or maybe make archers cost us a lot more coin. Make scouting towers cheap and give us more of them, and only let us have a tiny amount of archer towers.

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#37 Post by Aslak » Wed Apr 01, 2015 8:26 am

Skragna wrote:@Aslak: Halforcs tend to group up into huge unmanageable groups in a heartbeat if you're unlucky or just not incredibly quick on the "run away right now" thing. To wit...

Halforc, Halforc.

Halforc screams: HELP!

You hear a halforc from the west: I come!
You hear a halforc from the west: I come!
You hear a halforc from the west: I come!
You hear a halforc from the west: I come!

Two halforcs are a pretty dangerous fight. SIX of them will kill virtually every player in the MUD, and once you're outnumbered like that, in a tiny room, you have next to NO chance of escaping. To make it worse, halforcs chase you, to boot, making that tiny chance of escape even tinier.
Glad I have never seen 6 halforcs in a team yet. 2 ain't very dangerous (as in dying), but 4 of them can do quite some damage and usually require a retreat once or twice.
Skragna wrote: Now, to chime in on the original purpose of the thread: I don't think that giants should automatically attack someone after they've been interacted with, for some time. They should yell or holler at them from afar to warn players of what lies ahead. Sathonite undead shouldn't be allowed weapons period, because they're deadly enough as-is, but keep them or lose them, Sathonites will continue to use them much as they have lately. I'd be perfectly happy, myself, with losing our watchtower archers if they still scouted, or maybe make archers cost us a lot more coin. Make scouting towers cheap and give us more of them, and only let us have a tiny amount of archer towers.
Problems are that certain strong monsters guard places that you should not visit easily, so they MUST attack at least at those places.
I think of they would simply walk home after a short while (or warp home if special exist block normal moving), all would be fine.
The same goes for player constructed NPCs, like towers or undeads or mercs, either give them a short lifetime of few hours, or give them a HEAVY cost if they are destroyed. Would I hack more crusader towers if I knew they would have to pay a hefty fine to the family of the archer on top of it? Would I dare to fight undeads if destroying them would heavily effect the EP? I would also lead to a lot more consideration if placing them here is really required and if I can defend them at this place.
The other questions is, why only two of many guilds have "remote power".

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#38 Post by luminier » Wed Apr 01, 2015 7:02 pm

Crusaders already have to "pay a fine" if we lose the tower guard actually.

Sathonites losing EP if undead are killed is kind of a bad idea though. I think more thought would be needed to be put in if an idea like that were to work out. Like they would need another way to gain EP and undead would be much stronger and in much smaller numbers. Which i don't really like personally.
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Re: The Thurse Thread

#39 Post by Aturshus » Fri Apr 03, 2015 3:43 am

Remove undead ability to wield, make them decay like golems do?
And definitely prevent this thing about taking living monsters and setting them up as traps. That is way beyond stupid, in an RP sense. Why would they stay indeed. The only reason this can happen is because the code allows it, even if there's no way to explain it IC. I mean, if somebody captures a thurse and drags it across the continent, it's not going to sit there obediently and guard the place for them. It's PROBABLY going to hunt them down or at least go home.

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Re: The Thurse Thread

#40 Post by Delia » Fri Apr 03, 2015 3:53 am

Remove undead ability to wield, make them decay like golems do?
Golem life expectancy can be extended, I have to say that much, but I have no idea how it works(how long it lasts). Never tried it. Needless to say it requires additional devotion from the mage to do it.

I do not see extended golem time as problematic though, as there are reasons why you do not see golems littering the landscape like watchtowers and undead do.
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