a lil concerned

Posted by Gho on 11/19/96

I heard the pre-req(s) for hunt is gonna be raised and think it may be a bad idea, it's more realistic that not everyone should have the skill but it's far too useful a command that very few are likely to go without it and we'll probably end up seeing 1 kind of mage being the only viable option, like if the ability to flee's gonna continue to be dex based that'd be one major reason i'd go dex. If the pre-req for hunt's gonna be say 50 perc, what options do con or str mages have? something like: 100 con 60 mind 50 perc 40 dex 35 spirit 30 str.. just enough mind to cast spells but not enough of any other stats to be worthwhile learning any dex or str based skills, o'course other pre-req's are going to be upped too so i can only imagine it'd be worse. Hmm, this may be a little unclear, how about another example.. With my old setup i was at 100 con 70 dex 60 mind 35 spr 30 perc & str basically how the mud is now, con mages have the ability to go for either high mind or just enough mind to cast and go for as much dex as they could instead, the dex route allowed one to headbutt, tumble etc when fighting another con mage adding more variety, i have a feeling that if certain almost neccessary skills are set to have high pre-req's we're gonna end up with much fewer options..

From: Beam Tuesday, November 19, 08:59PM

well gho considering nobody will really be able to spam for skills anymore, i would think prereqs for skills would go down if anything not up. A change like making all the old skills harder to get is just the kind of thing everyone is scared that skill trees would do, but I personally can't think of one good reason why this would be done, other than to possibly make things a bit most classed because i don't think there is enough difference between each kind of character. But surely simple skills like hunt couldn't be changed so drastically without really making things horrible.

From: Haul Wednesday, November 20, 04:37AM

It was to my understanding that skill req's will do go up, and that fighter-mages in general would be put in peril, or at least not given as many options as pure fighters. Besides, as far as I know, a new skill, track is being offered as a low-level hunt (or some other skill) and stuff. Also, the purpose of this I thought was to place more importance to the locate person spell so that non-mages would have a harder time tracking down their prey. With the relative toughness to spam (which I am really, really opposed to) it only makes sense that skill reqs will have to go up, as that will be an added deterent in being able to spam for stats (which I am not opposed to).

From: Manic Wednesday, November 20, 07:24AM

well, if locate person was a 2nd circle spell maybe it wouldn't be so bad apart from having to cast it many times as the target's gonna being moving around, o'course then the target need only move a couple of rooms and you've lost it again.. ahh well, just meditate for 1/2 hour and try again huh? :/

From: Rufus Wednesday, November 20, 10:18AM

Okay, lets take a bit of looking at this...

Currently, the ability to hunt allows someone with really high level and perception the equivalent of standing on the west coast of the united states and track someone moving around in Europe. SILLY! Not even the best tracker can do this! Frankly, spy sattelites are about the only thing with this much accuracy. The prereq's for hunt are so low, however, that nearly everyone can get it.

So you have someone with decent mind... say a good 80-90, and 100dex, who has enough req's to cast all their own spells without spamming at all... hmm, they can also be a master hunter... Not only that, these prereq's allow them to be a 'master tailor' (which is really now rather simple, but will more of a distinction under skill trees), if you pick one of two hometowns, you can also be a fairly established herbalist, or even, with the stats above, a decent though not specialized bowman.

Hmm, what can't that character do? Well they can't trueform, some can some can't repair. But they never have the need to buy food and water's always at the nearest well. Sounds like everything's all packaged up.

I'm afraid however that you'll be sorely disappointed with way hunt changes if you are so dependant on it now. First off, you will only be able to hunt mobs that move. Sentinal mobs are going to be virtually unhuntable. Why? They never move, and something that never moves, never leaves tracks in the room for you to pick up a hunt trail on.

But players move, don't they? Sure they do, but have they moved through the room you're in in the past 12 ticks or so? I mean, tracks can vanish after a while...

Frankly, I think the skill req's going up for this is a good idea. Consider yourself the average Joe in RL. You have average perception and all, if you were dropped out in the forest, could you manage to follow a really worn set of tracks to a deer for a quick meal? Maybe maybe not. Not everyone is capable of learning, and not everyone has had the time to hone that skill.

The tradeoffs? I had someone comment as they were chasing my clanned around 'cut that out! I almost hunted you into a deathtrap! that's not fair!'... well under the new code, that won't happen since you will see the actual path they took rather than the shortest path between two points. Hunters will also have other woodland-related skills that will prove very very useful.

No, not everyone will have hunt. Right now the mud is so dependant on hunt that I find it really, really sad. I remember being level 5 or so with my first character, not knowing that hunt existed, and getting thorougly lost nearly everywhere! In fact, my first character didn't have hunt until well into the 40's as far as level goes. What was the result? I can now get darn nearly from any one place on the mud to any other place on the mud in the dark (I don't do well blind, the 'exits' command is still a useful tool =) but I know the areas.

Granted, I use hunt probably as much as anyone else does, but I have characters who have the req's for it but refuse to get it based on principle (EEW! that's a nasty ranger skill!). I won't miss it when it's gone, and I won't be disappointed when not every Joe on the mud can track me down from virtually 5K miles away.

And as for the locate person spell, for a pure mage (and yes *gasp* there ARE some of those around), the mana cost is really a drop in the bucked and can be regained in nearly 1 tick. Oh my, that 75 seconds is SUCH a pain to sit through!

-ruf

From: Gho Wednesday, November 20, 10:47AM

actually it's more like 2 ticks for 40 mana for me, maybe i'm just not good at meditating.. not that i can locate person anyway *shrug*

umm, just don't forget what games are about, they're an escape from reality, removing nice features from the mud whether realistic or not isn't going to make the game any more enjoyable.

From: Beam Wednesday, November 20, 12:40PM

Well making hunt harder to learn makes a little bit of sense, but you must have your head in a vice if you think making spamming for stats harder, also means that skills should be harder to learn also. I think everyone would agree that making it hard to spam for stats wouldnt make learning skills any easier. So how could you say that making skills harder would also mean that the prereqs for all skills should go up? If anything the should be lowered.

I think i see where you guys are going with these skill trees, and it all goes back to this mud not being classed, everyone has always been able to do everything, and now this isnt real enough for you

From: Beam Wednesday, November 20, 12:50PM

I would rather see less access to skills by hometown than the stat reqs on skills being raised.

From: Haul Wednesday, November 20, 03:01PM

Maybe i am thoroughly mistaken, but to my understanding, the point of skill trees is to have people specialize in some skills, and maybe have minimal knowledge on some others, if they do have any.

Raising the pre-req's for combat skills will hurt everyone, but as far as I know, it will hurt the current 2nd-circle-cause-from-tara-that can-brew-backstab-kick-bash-headbutt-warcry-flavor-and-what-not types as it is very feasible to make a character like that, with virtually no shortcomings (granted, they do not possess any super-powerful edges either, but the lack of shortcomings itself is a big advantage, imho) I mean, I find it very silly that a person who has supposedly devoted much of his life in magic can be just as devastating in combat as a thief or warrior who spend more time honing and perfecting their skills.

By raising the pre-req, hopefully we will rid of mages that do not have any disadvantage whatsoever against a pure fighter. Hopefully they will only be granted one or two combat skills (maybe more but hopefully not as proficient) to compensate for their power in magic.

Besides, if as many new skills are introduced as promised, even by maximizing one stat, you should have just about enough options in a pk-bout as you do now.

Oh yeah, regarding more restrictions on hometowns--i personally think that was probably the worst idea there ever was, as you would be choosing classes by choosing your hometown. The idea of a hometown having restricted access to stuff is already very against classlessness (didnt we talk about this before?) and i think the best way for hometown restrictions is to have proficiency on some skills go up faster, degenerate faster, and whatnot, with only one skill or so available (preferrably for any stat that is maximized) to add flavor to the character that hails from that hometown, when compared to somebody else with exact same stats and another hometown.

From: Ptah Wednesday, November 20, 03:19PM

First of all, there's no way to make a blanket statement that skill prereqs are going up or down. It's going to be decided on a skill by skill basis. Yes, some are moving up. Yes, some are moving down. Their location in the trees demands it. Ride is becoming near universal. Headbutt is moving up somewhat. Etc etc. And no, it isn't just the "useful" skills that are moving up either, because we are trying to make all the skills useful in some fashion.

Currently, the intent is for hunt to be redesigned in such a manner that you can only track people who have actually passed through the room you start to check the trail in. Yes, this removes a major standard feature found on most muds, which is the extreme-long-range ability to locate a creature even if you have not seen it before. But hunt is considered indispensable here, and really should not be; on most classed muds, hunt is reserved to a ranger class--heck, a few years ago, few muds HAD it at all--and everyone gets by just fine with mapping and other methods.

Beam said, "I think I see where you guys are going with skill trees, and it all goes back to this mud not being classed, everyone has always been able to do everything, and now this is not real enough for you." The fact is that everyone has NOT always been able to do everything, but we sure have slipped into that mold in the last year. Which is a shame, as it reduces the variety of characters that can be played, as Beam said in a previous post. The intent was always "jack of all trades but master of none", but most people currently master many trades. So the skill trees are not a change in design philosophy, but rather an attempt to make the original design finally come true.

I LOVE Haul's idea about removing hometown restrictions and having them affect atrophy and learning rates. We'll be looking into how feasible it is. The main problem I foresee is that magic makes very specific use of the hometowns, and it could create some major imbalances to suddenly switch over in that way... dunno, but yu can be sure that we will look at it!

Again--relax about skill pre-reqs. In the end, the PLAYERS will have the final say about them during the playtest period.

-PTah

From: Beam Thursday, November 21, 01:13AM

When i was writing that quote i think i know where your going with skill trees... I kinda realized I didn't really know, and had to think about it some more heh, but this char i have is from tara and can do most things. What I was trying to say is that I hope skill prereqs aren't used to separate the trees so that two things are mutually exclusive. I would rather still be able to do a variety of things if it was available to my hometown instead of one thing i wanted needing say 80 spirit and another thing 70 str. As for hometowns being the worst idea ever as Haul said in response to my post I would point out that right now thats what separates herbalists, mages, gunfighters etc as least as much as stats. I enjoy playing this char but i agree it has access to too many skills, thats why i said i would rather see it taken care of using hometown access to skills rather than upping the prereqs, I guess neither of these is a really good way to limit skill availability, but its not something I'm really worried about I'm sure you immorts will have it designed nicely.

From: Belmat Thursday, November 21, 07:58AM

Hunt? Whats Hunt?
(Agrees with Rufus)

Belmat, the Rivan Sorcerer that can walk from Agrabah to Tara in the dark

From: Manic Thursday, November 21, 12:30PM

Sure, i can manually walk from Agrabah to Tara in the dark too, due to my lag (and slow auto-hunt) i've been doing it for a long time.. where the main problem lies is in pkill, many can't cast locate person and some won't have hunt either.. what are they to do? just wait for people to hunt them down and basically only being the agressor on those freak occasions they just bump into another clanned? pkill as we know and enjoy it is doomed.

From: Ptah Thursday, November 21, 01:39PM

Perhaps pkill as you know it is doomed, but that may not be a bad thing in many players' opinions. Pkill was never intended to be a subgame of the mud, but rather an integrated part of the mud's normal play. It was also supposed to be tied to roleplay. Neither is true now, as pkill culture on the mud more closely resembles a deathmatch game that happens to take place in the same arena as LegendMUD.

This is not to say that said games are not fun--countless pk-only muds have thrived on having play of ONLY that type. But it does tend to overwhelm the other methods of playing a pkill-enabled character. In the last few days in the context of the newbie-helping discussions, the factor of "I can't help newbies because I am liable to be attacked at any time" has come up on several occasions; this is a sign of a pkill culture that doesn't really fit with the rest of the mud very well, IMHO.

Again, I don't dislike the style in itself, I dislike how poorly it fits with the rest of the mud. Maybe two muds is the answer. :P

-Ptah