fight changes

Posted by Irony on 05/31

okay, here's something i don't like. headbutts are based on con. you know, as it is, headbutt is probably the best/most powerful special that exists right now. you can win a good number of pkill fights using nothing more than headbutts (ask myself or sharpe or almost any successful pkiller).

people were saying that con will stink.

however, the way i see it, con will rule. instead of a dex-based mud, legend will now become a con-based mud.

everyone will want the stunning ability of headbutt as well as the hps of a con fighter.

the question is this: will anything change in the diversity of chars? i would guess that it won't. nowadays, almost everyone is 100 dex and the they have another high stat or a group of them (for surgeons).

with the change, it'll be the same, only everyone will be 100 con instead.

go ahead and poll the mud. the most popular skill is probably headbutt. and if you look at the characters around here, everyone goes for someone with high hps (including myself). with the number of hps being based on current con, everyone will stay at 100 con due to the importance that we all seem to give to having a lot of hps.

anyway, any thoughts?

irony

From: Landy Saturday, May 17, 07:04AM

Heck Gail.. why don't we do away with the skills all together??

The coders seem to be trashing everything else that has been good on the m mud.. i wouldnt be suprised if quests were going to be aligned soon..

who needs pkill?

who needs these changes?

Landy

From: Manic Saturday, May 17, 10:04AM

You're right Irony, the hp range should be more like 5-600 for 30 con.. 800 at 100 con to ensure variety in characters but alas that just aint gonna happen.. shame bout all the work that went into yours and others 3rd circle dex mages.

Ohh yeah, isn't AC gonna be changed to damage absorption rather than simply affecting hit/miss!?

From: Lagmonster Saturday, May 17, 01:58PM

the way i understood it was that landing headbutt may be con-based, but you could still dodge it with dex (tumble, dodge, ac?). But if this is not the case, no kidding that con-combo fighters will rule. Con mages, for example, will have 100con/mind (one of the easier combos to manage) and will be able to enjoy what dex/mind chars have now, plus all the hps.

but leaving headbutt dex-based will leave the mud equally unbalanced, as i is now... dex will still rule. Giving every char some ability to stun wil in effect eliminate diversity (it'll be simply cosmetic)... so if we are moving headbutt to con, why not reduce skill-lag in dex skills, such as kick? or maybe give headbutters a chance to "backlash" headbutting a nearby tree instead, or something.

I am doing up to 180ish points with headbutts now, and it is the ONLY skill other than a lucky warcry that gives me the little chance i have whe fighting hp monsters. It only takes 2-3 stuns to kill me with my current, somewhat beefed-up hps, and after skill trees, it will hardly take 2 round I guess i'm just babbling, but in short, i agree with irony in headbutt being the most powerful pkill skill, and i agree with manic in that we all need more hps to put strategy/skill back into pkill. The way it is now, an inexperienced mage could kill me just by chanting three words.

Lagmonster

From: Ptah Saturday, May 17, 03:08PM

First off, fixing problems like these is what the testing period is for. : If con, dex, and str aren't evenly balanced once we're done, then we (and I mean the players too) have messed up in our testing and balancing period.

Next, concerning expanding hps--seems to me that an easier way to do this is reducing average damage instead. :) That would mean that instead of making pkill (which is engaged in by 5% of the characters) more strategic and obliging the imms to redo every darn mob on the mud to double their hps, we could keep the mobs in the same scale, and reduce the effects of stuff like hitroll across the board. There are multiple paths to the same goal, and redefining the value of a hit point is a lot easier than rewriting the mud database.

-Ptah

From: Lagmonster Saturday, May 17, 03:38PM

if we do decide to decrease player damage, won't that make mobs simply so much harder, and wouldn't we have to change them again to make the mud more balanced anyway?

From: Manic Saturday, May 17, 04:05PM

but.. players basically had 1000 hp's with sancs anyway? I don't really care if max hp's stay as they are being like 600 at 100 con but 30 con should give 400+ hp's not 150.

From: Ptah Saturday, May 17, 05:08PM

The mud was never designed for players with 1000 hit points, though. It was never designed for players with 500. :P Which might be one reason why people regularly kill 20 levels over their level--to find some challenge. Yes, the high levels are going to get "worse" no matter what, if we try to balance the game. :P Sorry, but there's no way around that. Think of it as adding more challenge at the high end, if you prefer.

What's going on is basically trying to bring the game back into balance.

To give you a better idea of what I mean--we COULD also just readjust the XP a mob is worth by tracking what levels typically kill it. You'd find that most every mob of lvl 45+ would drop to lvl 30 or so... and XP would be much harder to come by.

Now, one thing people always suggest is to just add more at the top. But that, unfortunately, is an unwinnable arms race. The new tougher mobs end up needing ever nicer eq, thenplayers get that much mor epowerful, etc. Balance is the other viable alternative...

-Ptah

From: Lagmonster Saturday, May 17, 06:26PM

with 358 hps, i have a hard time killing a mob near my level, and those are mobs that haven't been subjected to being beefed up recently. If 349 is the max combo of stats for players, it should be the same for mobs, or at least reasonably similar, instead of finding all 100 stats on mobs that are around lvl 49, 50, etc. It is highly frustrating fighting mobs that have no disadvantage a player can maximize on, and even more so when all my chars can't seem to have an easy time with them. All mobs i fight seem to be dex/mind with equivalent hps, tons more perc, etc, etc...

Lagmonster

From: Lethargio Saturday, May 17, 08:40PM

From: Beam Sunday, May 18, 02:05AM

Sorry but i talked about this long ago, and i been telling everyone they should go for 100 con/mind. And thats just because hp being based on current con, headbutt being based on con is just a super bonus.

As for 100 con having 800 hp and 30 having 500, i think it makes definate sense, as the problem with hp isnt damage its disparity.

Kinda the good things you get out of hp min and maxes for classes from other muds. One level 50 shouldnt have 120 hp and another 600 no matter how they do their chars, char gen here is anarchy.

The ability to hit or thac0 should be based on level, and the ability to n be hit should be based on armor.

One of the big problems with this mud I have always thought was armors insignifigance.

If you made everyones ability to not get hit with weapon attacks or skills all solely based on armor, and made plenty of armor with it progressively harder to get with the better it was then you would go a long way to fix t problem. Whether a players ability to hit with skills (I would say the best way for to hit with weapons would be weapon stat based against armor) is against the opponents armor, or level, its clear that stat against stat has led to some chaos.

Its a bit silly to me anyway that someone with 100 dex and poor armor can successfully get out of the way of someones headbutt or kick or whatev The problem with str dex and con fighters is your comparing apples to oranges, and there isn't any constants because armor is a joke.

I think you will have to make armor the most important by far overall defensive thing before things will work.

I'm not sure who originally designed the fight system, but theres a lot of major issues with it that have never been addressed and with the changes im hearing about, it doesn't really sound like they are going to be.

I think the mud would be closer to being balanced with the old type rolls I have heard about, where stats are over 50 and there was less stat eq, that way armor eq would be the most important thing.

Don't kid yourself if you got one person with 600 hp and another with 250, and the one with 600 is landing headbutts cutting damage in half isn't goi going to matter much. Unless of course the con fighter with 600 never hits anyone, which is the bad thing about con fighters now. On the otherhand if everyones hp at level 50 was within 150 hp, then you could do some fine tuning.

Anyway I'm looking forward to the changes and I hope they work out great good luck.

peace

Beam

From: Pegasus Sunday, May 18, 02:50AM

You're also forgetting that con has warcry too. With the conversion of headbutt to con, bash to str, dex will be left with what? kick and maybe backstab if you've got a reasonable amount of perc. Unless new skills (Whi cause stunning affects) are made for dex (and str for that matter, if bash doesn't produce a stun, for which i see no reason why it should with the w it currently functions), dex fighters will be majorly disadvantaged. Anoth way is to remove the ability to stun from the game, just use all other affects made by the current skills and the new skills, that's one way.. Bu i don't know much about the new skills going in, and they may end up eveni things out, as long as they compensate for the loss of hps for not being a con fighter, aswell as compensating for not being any combination of con with another fighting stat, including mind. Sounds impossible to me :P

Peg

From: Beam Sunday, May 18, 07:04AM

Well stun is changing so it isn't autohit, I would also like to see it made where you still see whats going on when headbutted but took some damage and got a skill delay like now. As for dex fighters not having skil I like the idea of them having limited skills.

Course it would be hard to do since anyone can be anything here, but if true dex fighters were the only ones given dodge as it is now, and the alert flag for backstab was removed, they could still really rock and if it wasn't too powerful dex fighters would be doing backstab fleeing which seems right to me.

Fleeing should be counterproductive for str and con fighters I would think general fighting anyway. With alert flag removed maybe a nice alert skill that worked like hide.

Making it so you start hitting someone as if they never fled the room would be nice, based upon your perception.

But that kinda ties in with an alert skill or awareness skill tree. Too bad were not going to get anymore practices.

That reminds me of something, does this make sense to anyone? Was talking a month or two back with an imm on chat about awards for 100 million xp. I was just thinking that a practice would be a neat prize.

but I remembered that when we was discussing rewards (on chat) that they s giving a spell or skill at 100 mill wouldnt be fair to everyone else, and this doesn't make sense to me, I mean what do you get when you hit 50, a p a practice right? Heh well i can't remember who it was but anything we suggested that would make a 100 mill player better was said it would give them an unfair advantage. I thought all that was needed for it to be fair was equal access to the bonus.

oops couldn't stop sorry for dhe spam

beam

From: Lagmonster Sunday, May 18, 08:20PM

so far, fighting stat-wise, i have come up with a char that can get 70str, 100dex/con, while maintaining hunting mind/perc.

From: Lagmonster Sunday, May 18, 08:22PM

well, continued.

so if you are not a mage, it isn't too hard to have 100 con, or simply high con while maintaining a fighting stat, or even two, depending on the roll. -ponder- what was the point of bringing that one up..? god, lost my train of thought... doh. wait, i'll have it back soon...

oh yeah, so if somebody decided to be a non-con mage, with probably some str on the side, and if stun was changed so it wouldn't be auto-hit, then how are they going to stand a chance against a con/dex monster with tons o str? Or anyone, for that matter, if the hp difference will be so vast.

I have been pkilling (getting pkilled, rather) as an underdog with no adva advantages over any of the established pkillers (just about), and found ou that 100 pts is pretty hard to overcome, and 200 pts almost impossible, ha having to rely on luck. After skill trees, if the fighting stats are matc matched in importance, than a hp difference of 400+ seems simply outrageou to me, as there would be no way i can imagine that would surmount that.

Why not have constitution be more an intangible stat--instead of affecting the amount of hps, have it affect regen rate more. say with 100 con, you 30 pts back in a tick, and with 30 con only about 4-5 pts. In a long batt a battle where constitution should actually matter, it should prove effici and balancing enough.

And stun is way too powerful. Auto hit is one thing, double damage anothe and by preventing damage a stun usually spells 90 pts (60 you do, 30 you p prevent, in simple case). Giving all three stunning skills to a con/mage (warcry, headbutt, stun spell) who also has about tons more hps, makes it very clear that the battle will be lopsided...

Lagmonster

From: Erodic Monday, May 19, 01:36AM

What if it was made so that the success of skills like headbutt and bash were made to go up against the opponent's dex?

now THAT makes sense. a truly dextrous fighter isn't gonna get headbutted too often by a big con fighter whose slow.

and if he's bashed by a str fighter, i would guess that he should tumble something like 50% of the time that he's hit, not to mention all the times that the brawny str fighter would miss...

just an idea.

From: Beam Monday, May 19, 05:30AM

Um im not positive erodic but i think that the skills like kick headbutt and bash are or until recently were all based against dex. Or with dodge s skill possibly dex/perc. And the ability to land these skills were based o dex also. Which led to the most powerful either being a dex fighter or a mage, or both. Basically if you werent dex or a high mind mage, your chara cter is gonna be a bit more of a challenge to play.

From: Lagmonster Monday, May 19, 05:06PM

a bit more of a challenge... whee, understatement of the year. but i think it should be possible to dodge certain stat skills from err, i mean, to dodge certain stat skills with other skills based on other stats, so a con warrior does not always have a guarantee of landing a con-based skill on a dex fighter, or a str fighter. make sense? basically what beam's talking about in relation to armor, in a way.

From: Cobalt2Guest Monday, May 19, 07:22PM

exactly, lagmonster.

sorry, this is erodic again.

What lagmonster suggests is what will bring equity/parity/balance to the mud between fighter types.

right now, since dex has been determined to be the strongest and its skills check against an opponents dex, everyone feels compelled to max that stat.

If you allow a dex fighter to escape a con attack or a str fighter to block a dex attack or a con fighter to just absorb and grin at a str attack, etc... then THAT will balance things.

the balance for fighting, in my opinion, woill probably end up depending on defensive maneuvers to avoid specials.

you know why justice is the only pkiller who is con without dex? because no one else is willing to get headbutted every time.

if something was done to make con fighters have more defensive measures (this is for now, of course) against dex skills, then they'd be more prevalent.

that will also be the case after trees.

From: Lagmonster Tuesday, May 20, 08:32PM

heh. there are about 3 more pkillers that are con/mind, and has forsaken death, other than Justice.

From: Gabriella Wednesday, May 21, 11:43PM

Just FYI, I'm a dex/per fighter/surgeon. I've NEVER used con eq for leveling. In fact, I lowered my con when I leveled :P Anyway, at level 50, with 30 con (lowered to at least 20 for half my levels), I have 219hp. So, a dex char with at least a 30 con (most have more), will have at least as much hp as I do, probably more. Where you got 150hp is beyond me.

Gabriella, the hp-less wonder

From: Lagmonster Thursday, May 22, 03:20AM

you can get up to 6 hps with 30 con per level, FYI. Of course, you can get as low as 2-3 hps per level too, i think. 49 x 3 = 147 + 20 = 167... well, whatever.

dex/perc fighter surgeon will work with spam gear, not sure how high of a perc you will have with full doctor ability, tho i think 80 is possible. anyway, the point is, against mobs, i could probably still hit/flee solo lvl 49ish mobs with a 100 hp dex/perc, but in pkill... no way. :P

From: Gabriella Thursday, May 22, 02:05PM

I have 84perc, so yes, I'm a sniper. I do fine against mobs, as for pkill I have two words for you: Gail, Malorn.

From: Lagmonster Thursday, May 22, 03:06PM

Gail wasn't quite around for all the hp/mana monsters we have now, and snipe had ID, which could make up for her lack of hps. Also, with a sanc she had 198, which is equivalent to nearly 400. Malorn, i don't recall seeing him pkilling, let alone winning a battle (no offense, for i respect him greatly). Against mobs, imho, ANY character does fine--even my stinki str/con can rack up xps rapidly enough to reach lvl 45 in 100hrs (while sl sleeping to heal and stuff). As far as pk goes, firstival, if you're not dex, and not have hps, you're dead in less than 3-4 rounds, and even if yo are the shooter variety, which is slightly more doable even with less hps- couple headbutts and you're still gone

From: BokChoy Friday, May 23, 04:13AM

Um, I would also like to add (and no offense, gail) that gail was never able to beat mercenary during the merc/knight war (at least not that i remember).

also, (again, no offense to anyone here), gail and malorn did not strike fear into anyone's hearts as pkillers.

of course, this may be due to the fact that they were more rp-oriented pkillers, but the fact of the matter is, good pkillers almost invariably have had lots of hps.

If you look at people who were considered good a long time ago, (tempus, mercenary, kiera, auggie), they all had more hps than anyone else.

then you get to a later hp-monster era (sharpe, irony, howard), where they all had more hps than anyone else, too.

bottom line is, hps have always been really important, give or take 100.

From: Kadiya Monday, May 26, 12:55AM

One would suggest that the sensible thing to do would be to wait and see what skill trees are like in practice during the test period. -Then- we can whinge and whine about what's right and what isn't. It's a bit hard to judge how things are going to be on paper.

The patient,

Kadiya

From: Rufus Saturday, May 31, 10:29AM

More hps than anyone else? Merc had about 375+sanc, that's small compared to these days. Kiera? Slightly over 280 or maybe it was around 300 and she never used sanc. Tempus? not exactly in the HP monster category either. And considering I'm one of the people who helped auggie with his first 20 levels or so (ask someone about ridding the mud of Terminator sometime), he didn't have that many either. Who you have singled out are the people who honestly went above and beyond the 'hps' thing, they used cunning and strategy to pkill (even with botched stats, and no offense to tempus, but he might not be in the category of the other three as far as pkill goes).

Kiera consistently fought people not only with more hps, but with sanctuary as well (for you math freaks, some of the people she REGULARLY defeated had 3 times as many hps when you figure it all out). Merc was still around when the first round of 'later hp-monsters' came about and he faired quite well, not 100%, but better than most with those numbers of hit points.

"Good pkillers almost invariably have lots of hit points." Not true. Good pkillers don't need lots of hit points, mediocre ones with lots of hit points do well, good pkillers with lots of hit points utterly dominate pkill. I think that's a more accurate summation of the situation.

-Ruf